Piotr Leszkiewicz, an independent consultant and owner of The First Principle, which offers dental practices a full range of health and safety and consultancy services, spoke first. He was keen to emphasise the importance of adopting a proactive approach to keeping water lines clean; in his opinion, being proactive, not reactive, is key to achieving ‘best practice’.
In his experience, many water lines in dental practice fail to meet regulatory requirements, as various water line cleaners do not, in fact, effectively eliminate biofilms. Highlighting the significance of biofilm proliferation, Piotr said that it allows bacteria to grow to levels where it could transmit to humans – in the form of, for example, Legionella.
Alongside the need to choose an effective water line cleaner, Piotr considered that filling the dental unit’s bottle with reverse osmosis (RO) water is a better option than using mains water, as the dental team can rest assured that the water source is bacteria-free and can remain so with a simple maintenance procedure.
Simon Davies, managing director of CleanCert, then went on to explain how and why CleanCert+ cleaner offers the ideal solution to the water line problem, together with purified water (either RO or distilled). He shared that CleanCert+ contains an active ingredient called hypochlorous that, when used for five minutes once a week as a ‘shock’ treatment, far exceeds the current recommendation in section 6.79 of HTM 01-05 (2013) of 100 to 200 colony forming units per millilitre. Using CleanCert simplifies workflows in practices, which reduces user errors and in turn helps with achieving ‘best practice’ compliance.
Rounding off the event, Jason Bedford, clinical director at Dental Directory, recounted how MyDentist undertook a thorough review of water quality across its 600 practices and rationalised its processes and procedures from using 11 different waterline cleaners – with very mixed results – to a cohesive, safe and effective approach using CleanCert+ alone.
Commenting on this journey, Jason said, “We took five of the top-selling water line cleaners in the country and put them into 50 practices. We had all those water lines properly tested by an independent lab to get a benchmark starting point. All the waterline manufacturers had the chance to put the necessary equipment in and train the nurses, to achieve the best possible outcome for their product. A month later, we checked the water lines again and, of the five cleaners in the trial, only two met the required standards.”
These two companies were invited to pitch for MyDentist’s business, with CleanCert+ coming out the overall winner, as it was not only efficacious but also easy to use, time-saving and great value for money.
Jason went on to state, “The health and safety guys were comfortable, the procurement guys were comfortable, the equipment guys were comfortable, and the clinicians and nurses were happy that the water lines were clean. As the biggest dental group in the world, with around 10 million patient visits a year, we can now be sure they're all getting clean, safe water.”
For further information on the full range of dental infection control and water purification products available from CleanCert, visit www.cleancert.co.uk.