Occupational health and safety, etc. The 1974 Act applies to all workplaces, including dental offices. It makes clear that all employers are responsible not only for the health and safety of their employees, but also for everyone on their premises, such as patients or providers. All employees and visitors to a workplace must also act responsibly and avoid hazards that could injure themselves or others. In particular, the following areas of fire protection shall be observed. Full compliance with health and safety regulations for all dental workplaces, whether it is an office, clinic or hospital department, includes all of the following. Injuries caused by sharp and sharp objects are one of the main dangers for dental assistants. You or the doctor should dispose of the needles in a special sharp container (see page 40) to avoid the risk of injury. Smoking in all enclosed workplaces is now banned throughout the UK. All enclosed workstations, which include all types of dental stations, must display a “No Smoking” sign at each entrance (Figure 4.6) and the sign must indicate: “No Smoking. It is illegal to smoke in these premises. Prior to the ban, careless cigarette disposal was a major cause of workplace fires, so future analyses of fires and their causes will hopefully show a reduction in their frequency.
Compliance with the Occupational Health and Safety Act is monitored and regulated by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). It is a government agency that provides advice to employers on appropriate enforcement and investigates when serious incidents occur in a workplace where a person is seriously injured or killed. Each dental workplace must be registered with the HSE. Read COSSH reports on five hazardous substances used in your dental practice. See also COSSH publication “Working with hazardous substances” (www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/indg136.pdf). However, many dental assistants start their careers as young interns in the dental field, so the following two sets of rules are especially important to protect their well-being. There are specific health and safety laws for healthcare that cover areas such as allergies, blood-borne viruses (BBV), sharps injuries, medical waste, legionella, PPE and pandemics. General Dental Council: The body that regulates all dentists who train and work in the UK.
Several government laws and regulations deal with occupational health and safety; these laws and regulations are enforced by the HSE. Of particular importance to the dental environment in the UK are: The purpose of the Health and Social Services (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014 is to ensure that persons responsible at executive level for quality and safety of care and compliance with basic standards (such as registered managers) are fit to play this important role. CQC guidelines outline how providers and managers can comply with regulations, including basic standards, which are the standards below which care should never fall. It also outlines how the CQC (the regulator) inspects services to ensure providers comply with these regulations. Thermal burns can occur when hot instruments or materials are removed from steam sterilizers or microwaves. In particular, several dental instruments such as extraction clamps, elevators and metal mouth gags store heat for several minutes after sterilization and can thus lead to burns for staff and patients when used immediately after sterilization. Handling dental handpieces that overheat during use can also cause heat burns. This often happens due to the difficulty of measuring their temperature through the gloves that all clinic staff must wear. The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Ordinance 2005 stipulates that an electric fire alarm system and/or an automatic detection system are only required in premises where these devices would be required to warn in the event of fire. The types of premises would be large workplaces, perhaps on several levels, where a fire that breaks out in an area could go unnoticed by a regular smoke detector or go unnoticed by a person for a period of time. Hospital departments and health clinics are examples of where these additional methods of fire detection would be needed. The General Dental Council (GDC) sets the standards of conduct, performance and ethics that apply to dentists.
It sets out the principles, standards and guidelines that apply to all members of the dental team. It also defines what patients can expect from their dentists. In accordance with clinical governance guidelines (see Chapter 3), each practice must meet the following requirements. All dental assistants are required by law to cooperate with their employers to meet the practice requirements regarding these safety measures. They are designed to protect not only staff and patients, but also anyone else who uses or visits the premises. In a large dental workplace, a dental assistant may be appointed as a safety officer under the law to improve collaboration within the firm on health and safety issues. The Medicines Act 1968 provides the main legal framework for the prescription, dispensing, storage and management of medicinal products, classifying them into categories, including prescription medicines and controlled medicines. The law requires that the right medication be given to the right patient at the right time, with the right dose and in the right formulation. Table 4.1 summarizes the details of the risk assessment, covering the different types of activities that a dental assistant is likely to perform to ensure her safety in the dental workplace. The risk assessment should take into account the likely activities that the student dental assistant will perform on-site, and these are listed in the first column.
In order to train effectively, they must always be involved in chair assistance activities, so areas of potential risk to the student during the work at the Chair must be taken into account – these are listed in the second column. The last column should then identify the methods required to ensure that the student is not exposed to these risks in the first place, and for each area it can be seen that appropriate initial training is always required. This includes explaining why a particular activity poses a risk to them, providing appropriate training for the activity to minimize risk as much as possible, and initially monitoring the first time the activity is performed. Before dental assistants were registered with the General Dental Council (GDC) and therefore required training and qualifications, this monitoring was referred to as “shading” of a junior colleague by an older colleague until she was able to perform the work unsupervised. The risk assessment procedure described here only formalizes the shading technique. In addition to occupational health and safety, etc. The Dentists Act 1974 holds the employing dentist liable for any errors or omissions made by his staff (including dental assistants). The Equality Act 2010 legally protects people from discrimination in the workplace and in society. It sets out the different ways in which it is illegal to treat someone and ensures that all of the following protected characteristics are protected: Possible causes of serious bleeding in the dental workplace include unexpected surgical trauma, traumatic falls, serious and sharp injuries, etc. The Dentists Act 1984 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom regulating dentistry. In particular, the function of the General Dental Council, dental organizations, etc.
Some dental materials can cause allergic reactions. The above-mentioned regulations were updated by the Regulations on Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety), which entered into force in 2006. It states that the employer/owner of the premises (dental workplace) must take appropriate measures to reduce the risk of fire and ensure that persons on the premises can escape safely in the event of a fire. They therefore require the employer/owner to assess the risks of the fire safety precautions required for their own workspaces, as these vary from workplace to workplace. A practice on the ground floor is considered less dangerous for staff and patients in the event of a fire than, for example, in a multi-storey building. All dental offices must have policies and procedures in place to guide staff on how to respond appropriately when a hazard is anticipated and reduce risk. Local policies and procedures are based on national health and safety regulations. Health and safety regulations aim to protect staff and patients on premises by alerting staff to potential hazards in the workplace and encouraging them to find the best ways to make their premises safer for everyone involved.