Health test practice

Since the rollout of the Health Technical Memorandum, it has been a legal requirement for all primary care dental practices to work at or above the essential quality requirements. Despite this, compliance remains an issue. Indeed, a report by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) shows that 10 per cent of the practices observed between April 2015 and November 2016 failed their inspection, many of which were due to shortcomings in infection prevention and control.

This article serves as a reminder of the basic standards expected by the CQC when it comes to decontamination of used dental instruments, and what improvements could be made to move towards best practice. While not all practices will have the facilities to adopt these preferred procedures, clinical teams should endeavour to implement these changes wherever possible, as well as be able to provide a statement on plans for future development.

Cleaning, disinfection and sterilisation