Dental Tribune UK Edition, September 13-19, 2010, Vol. 4 No. 21

17Infection Control TribuneSeptember 13-19, 2010United Kingdom Edition W ith HTM01-05 now giving a clear bench- mark for us all, we have to think about what we do in practice. Keeping standards is our professional duty, regardless of the working environment. At our practice, as a team we’ve had several meetings to iron out the small kinks in our protocol and plan our own con- version of a small area of the practice into our central sterili- sation room. This is not easy in a listed building, I can tell you. Meeting standards But infection control is tricky for those of us in Locum positions and self-employed. How do you cope when you walk into a sur- gery that is not meeting the best practice guidelines? I know this should be a hypothetical ques- tion, but in reality, there will be practices out there which are not confirming. Do we now include barri- ers and surface cleaners in our ever-expanding work cases, to ensure we meet standards? Do we need enough instrument kits to do a whole day, so we are not relying on the practice facilities? As it is unlikely we can transport a washer disinfector with us, how do we then transport our instruments prior to cleaning? In reality, as a self-employed lo- cum, we do need to think about this. Communication as always is key to ensuring you have all the things you need to facilitate quality control. Time management and in- fection control All of these things need to be ad- dressed while working within the practice time frame. Unfortu- nately, many practices still offer 20-minute, unaided hygienist ap- pointments. I think it is fairly ob- vious why these practices don’t use permanent staff in a lot of cases. So, how do you time man- age effective infection control in between clients? More often than not, hygien- ists are not supported by nursing staff in practice and are responsi- ble for their own surgery clean- ing. To ensure adequate environ- ment control and to maintain the standards required, this can eat into appointment time, unless it is well thought out. Perhaps locum companies should be asking for proof of certification when this comes into effect to ensure the safety of their locums? Perhaps we need to address this through our soci- eties and groups to bring about a change to appointment sched- ules? Apart from some very well thought out hospital depart- ments, who else has time allo- cated at the beginning and end of each day to allow for good prac- tice? Most practices will expect you to arrive early and stay late, unpaid, to ensure the surgery is prepared and cleaned down. Assessing your current practice We do need to revisit our per- sonal approach to infection con- trol at regular intervals. Things change and we all know that corners can be cut when we are under pressure and it is impor- tant to recognise when stand- ards are dropping and rectify this. We are human and errors do occur, which is why repeat- ing knowledge is so useful to minimise this. It is why the core subjects came as compulsory and quite right too. CPD and cross-infection Please do not take the following information as anything other than comment from experience. The amount of CPD available, with regards to infection control, Cross infection: a hygienist’s point of view Mhari Coxon insists we must all take responsibility for raising the standard of care in our profession ‘More often than not, hygienists are not supported by nursing staff in practice and are responsible for their own surgery cleaning. To ensure adequate environment control and to maintain the standards re- quired, this can eat into appointment time, unless it is well thought out’ Maintaining standards is assisited by regular receiving of your approach to infection control page 18DTà