Patient Safety – Always Our Main Priority

A closer look at our facilities and procedures.

Although the issue of health and safety can raise eyebrows in the UK, with accusations of overkill; in terms of procedures which take place in a medical environment, including a dental surgery, health and safety is an extremely important issue indeed.

Because our dentists see a number of patients each day, the risk of passing an infection from one person to another is, like in any other public service, potentially quite high. However, at Darren Bywater Dental Care in Derby, we have stringent measures in place to address any potential issues that may arise and continually put our patients’ safety at the very top of our agenda.

Cross Infection Control

Cross infection occurs when viruses or bacterial infections are spread from one patient to another. There are a number of ways that this could happen within a dental practice and we look to address these as effectively as possible.

Risk Reduction

Although it is virtually impossible to eliminate the risk of cross infection 100%, there are a number of steps which we have taken at our state of the art dental practice in Derby, to ensure that all of our patients are protected as fully as possible.

By meeting, and indeed exceeding all of the standards that are laid down by the British Dental Association, we endeavour to eliminate the risk of any infections passing from one patient to the next to the very best of our ability.

Dental Materials

Wherever possible, we use disposable materials which are safely and promptly disposed of. Although we would, in an ideal world, like to use more disposable objects, sometimes this is not practical due to costs and would increase the price of dental procedures dramatically. This is where comprehensive sterilisation steps in.

Sterilisation

Any equipment which cannot be disposed of and is to be re-used, is fully sterilised between patients in our dedicated decontamination facilities. This includes both washers and also equipment which is designed to kill any bacteria or viruses through exposure to great heat. This not only ensures decontamination but also that the equipment is absolutely clean for each individual patient.

Work areas

It goes without saying that all of the work areas in the dental practice are thoroughly cleaned and sterilised using recommended cleaning agents that are designed to kill any bacteria or viruses that may remain on the work surfaces.

Staff

All staff at Darren Bywater Dental Care are required to conform to our hygiene policy and all dentists, hygienists and dental nurses who are involved in any clinical work, must wear masks and gloves which are designed especially for medical use. These are disposed of after each patient to ensure a high level of safety.

We feel that we have created a safe and clean environment at our Derby dental centre but as part of our practice ongoing development and continuous improvement, we aim to keep abreast of any developments within the medical world regarding cross infection control.

Additionally, we are subject to regular, stringent audits by third party authorities. We are extremely pleased to say that we have passed all of these with extremely high marks.

If you have any concerns or feel that we can improve our standards at all in this area, we are only too pleased to hear from you – we encourage constructive feedback from our patients as part of our continuous improvement programme.

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