Dental Practices Must Improve Decontamination Standards

Thu, 02 Dec 2010

Hundreds of dental practices across England are failing to clean their dental instruments to ‘a satisfactory standard’, according to a new study.

The Department of Health’s ‘Dental National Decontamination Survey’ of 487 randomly selected dental practices found that 71 per cent meet essential quality requirements (EQR) to reduce the risk from re-usable instruments, with one in five of these meeting best practice guidelines.

However, it revealed that better maintenance and cleaning of dental instruments is one area which is letting practices down, with 12 per cent of surgeries falling short on cross-infection measures.

The report said: "Decontamination in about 12 per cent of practices was found to be unsatisfactory. The data indicates a wide range of often unrelated defects in practice, equipment and approach."

"These practices have a significant amount of work to do to achieve EQR by April 2011 at the latest when dental practices will come within the remit of the Care Quality Commission."

"Further analysis on the deficiencies in this area and the support these practices can be given will be undertaken shortly."

In a written statement to MPs, health minister Simon Burns said: "I was very encouraged to learn that well over two thirds of practices were already meeting EQR. As to the remainder, the survey data shows a number of practices need to improve their cleaning of instruments which is a critical part of the decontamination cycle."

"The Department is encouraging practices to acquire automated washer-disinfectors, whose use is a feature of best practice, to achieve a uniformly high standard of cleaning of dental instruments ."
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