Infection Prevention & Control and Health & Safety in The Dental Surgery

In this case assignment I will discuss Infection Prevention & Control and Health & Safety in the Dental Surgery by discussing what methods and obstacles a dental nurse most overcome day to day when working in a dental surgery to insure it is safe and free from infection and contamination for herself/himself, other staff members and patients. A dental nurse should be aware of correct methods and guidelines and legislation such as sterilizing instruments correctly and keeping hard surfaces and work spaces zoned and denominated effectively.

Health and Safety in the dental surgery

Health and safety is extremely important in the dental surgery and requires excellent communication between all team members to maintain high standards and avoid injury within the dental surgery. Everyday a dental team and patients come into contact with hazardous and potentially dangerous materials such as waste amalgam, sharp instruments, x-ray radiation. Other obstacles in a dental surgery include suction tubing which may cause a fall, cleaning detergents and various chemicals and liquids that can spill and cause a fall or irritate skin. A dental nurse must be ready to act fast if with the correct or most appropriate method if any injury or spillage incurred from the above mentioned hazardous obstacles and materials.

PPE: Personal Protective Equipment

A nurse personal protective equipment or PPE is very important to protecting their health and safety in the work place and usually consists of: gloves, face-mask eye protection and may also include hair cap or cover.

To place the facemask on with clean un-gloved hands place ear loops around each ear, the mask showed fit securely and close to face the nose piece should be pinched around nose to cover nostrils and be sealed. When removing only use the ear loops or ties as the front of the mask is contaminated with aerosols after treatment, dispose of this mask in the correct bin and don a fresh mask before starting any other dental treatment.

Next protective eye wear should be placed on with the glasses sitting on top of parts of facemask making a secure barrier with no breaks. Must be worn to protect mucous membranes of eyes from aerosol droplets, projectiles and spatter. Eye protection can be in the form of hard reusable glasses or disposable clear sheets that can be decontaminated or change after each patient.

Alternative is a wearing a face shield which cover from the forehead to the chin, but you must still wear a facemask as it would not protect you from breathing in aerosols. Prescription eye glasses can be worn under protective glasses.

Lastly place on gloves in the correct size. Gloves should be worn for all dental procedures and when handling items or contacting surfaces contaminated with bodily fluid. When wearing gloves, you should never touch face hair other PPE and should not be worn outside the clinical area i.e. on phone or keyboards.

Apart from a nurses own PPE there are other barriers that can be used around the surgery to help protect further from infection and cross contamination like Rubber dam kit, surface barriers, high volume suction, single use disposable equipment etc.

Confidential Medical history forms

Medical history forms are very important to collect from patients as it can give you an idea of any diseases or infections the patient is carrying and could potentially pass to you or other patients if protocols with the sterilization of instruments and hand pieces are not followed correctly. Regardless of whether a patient has an infectious disease all patients should be treated the same. The same infection prevention and control procedures should be used for every patient (infected or not). Everyday practices must be of a high enough standard to prevent the spread of any disease. It is the dentist’s responsibility to go through the patients’ medical history before starting dental treatment. The patient should always be informed that the form is confidential and is very important for their safety and the health and safety of others to encourage the patient to give all relevant accurate information. Standard Precautions: “Standard precautions are meant to reduce the risk of transmission of blood borne and other pathogens from both recognized and unrecognized sources. They are the basic level of infection control precautions which are to be used, as a minimum, in the care of all patients.”

Dental nurses should also try to prevent accumulating unnecessary waste from accidently cross contaminating their masks gloves eye protection and zoned areas. This can be costly for a dental surgery. Nurse should know when and where they need gloves and should not where them all the time. The also should know they should not touch there ask and glasses with contaminated gloves as they will need to be replaced or cleaned contributing to the build-up of unnecessary waste. Dental practices can produce a lot of recyclable waste like medical history forms and signed consent that may be uploaded to a computer, if so the paper should be shredded and recycled. All dental practices should try recycling where possible all office waste like paper plastic etc. can be recycled.