Report raises concerns over dental clinic hygiene
A recent report has revealed that more than 10 percent of dental practices in England are not meeting government standards for decontaminating equipment and instruments.
The Dental National Decontamination Survey found that a significant proportion of practices are failing to clean instruments properly. The survey, which was supervised by the Department of Health and involved more than 500 dental practices across England, found that around 12 percent of practices failed to comply with proper procedures to clean instruments and subsequently reduce the risk of infection and contamination.
Overall, 71 percent of practices met “essential quality requirements” to decrease the danger of infection from re-usable dental instruments and 1 in 5 practices met the “best practice” guidelines; a further 20 percent of practices could meet this standard by making small changes to their current protocol.
Despite the positive results in general cleaning, the cleaning of devices stood out as an area where vast improvement is required; the results of the survey showed significant differences between practices and found that there were difficulties with using washers, testing dental equipment and transporting used instruments.
According to the report, the practices failing to clean instruments properly have a lot of work to do before April 2011, when they will be required to register with the Care Quality Commission; the body will be responsible for regulating dental practices.
Last November, the Department of Health published a Health Technical Memorandum on decontamination, which laid out regulations and protocol for sterilisation and cleaning; all practices are required to comply with the regulations set out in the document by the year’s end.
Join this Discussion