Their team were given the reward of a brand new NSK Autoclave at the ceremony in the Dental Practice of the Future at this year’s BDIA Dental Showcase. The Infection Prevention and Control Practice of the Year award, which aims to promote awareness of, and celebrate exceptional quality in, infection prevention and control is organised by infection control specialist schülke in association with George Warman Publications (Dental Update, The Dentist, Dental Nursing). Milne, Spencer and Harris are the winners of the third annual competition, and competed against the biggest number of entrants so far! The judges who decided on the winner this year were Clare Clark, technical support manager at schülke, Louis Mackenzie, dental practitioner and clinical lecturer at Birmingham University and Alex Breitenbach, managing director of NSK.
Attendees were welcomed by Andrew Scott from schülke who described the importance of the award, saying, “The ICP award is meant to recognise and celebrate practices that go above and beyond in the important area of infection control. There were some very very strong entries out of the almost 100 practices that entered the competition and the judges had the unenviable task of deciding between them all.”
Andrew handed over to Stuart Thomspon, managing director of George Warman Publications who thanked Nicola and schülke for helping to create the award, and thanked NSK for providing the prize. Stuart explained that he was looking forward to next year and then congratulated Michelle Hurd for being highly commended in this year’s shortlist, presenting her with a certificate. Michelle was very happy with her commendation, saying “I’m really chuffed to be rewarded for all of the work I have to do with red-tape and be congratulated with that.” Stuart then welcomed Louis Mackenzie to the stage for the announcement of the runner-up winners.
However hard the task was, the judges were able to narrow the entrants down to a shortlist of only eight practices. With over 100 entrants and such a high quality of infection control and prevention the judges this year felt it right to select not one, but two runners-up! Both Arden House Dental, Cheltenham and West Country Dental Care, Truro were exceptional and were commended by Louis Mackenzie. Louis praised both runners-up and awarded them with a certificate and trophy each. Describing the quality of the shortlisters, Louis said, “These practices are the best practices I’ve seen. The judges have praised your positive approach, excellent teamwork, and dedication to training”.
Sarah Farrier, principal dentist at Arden House Dental described how proud she was of her team, “It was a massive team effort and we’re delighted to have won as a runner-up. It’s great that everyone in our team has been recognised for all of their hard work and their dedication to high standards.”
Alex Breitenbach then took to the stage to announce the winner. After an introduction to NSK, Alex described that he was exceedingly happy to provide the prize for first place and spoke about the importance of decontamination, an area that NSK has only recently entered with its autoclave products. Alex then announced Milne Spencer and Harris, Normanton as the winner, praising the practice for, “offering a superb service to a huge number of NHS patients, by staff who are all really well informed and passionate about infection prevention.”
Alex awarded Milne Spencer and Harris with a brand-new NSK Autoclave, a trophy and a certificate. Jo Waller, practice manager at Milne Spencer and Harris was ecstatic. She said, “The whole team found competing for the award amazing. We’ve recently expanded our team and now have 22 members, so to have a team that is officially recognised for being trained to such a high standard is amazing. We’re all on the same page with infection control and prevention, and the whole team was over the moon to find out we’d won.”
Nicola Thurston then stepped onstage and thanked all the contestants after giving a summary of the competition, thanking everyone for attending and encouraging everyone to look forward to next year.