CDATA elements in XSLT

I am using a xslt transformation on an xml file which has this structure
(... this is only a subset):

xml file:
<AllWells>
 <Wells>
   <WellID>200-100</WellID>
   <PoolName>America &amp; Brownie</PoolName>
 </Wells>
 <Wells>
   <WellID>200-110</WellID>
   <PoolName>Jiraffe &amp; Breton</PoolName>
 </Wells>
</AllWells>

xslt file:
......
<xsl:template match="Wells">
 <element no_chars="?">
   <xsl:value-of select="PoolName/text()"/>
 </element>
</xsl:template>

The question is; How can I escape the & sign from the xml file to the xml
output so I can write to the xml output: "America & Brownie" instead of
having: "America & Brownie".

I also need to count on the number of characters for "America & Brownie" and
not from "America & Brownie".

I have read about CDATA but doesn't seems to be the better solution. Could
someone give me some advise on this ? Thank you.