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You will have many items of PPE that are recommended to you within the dental practice. These can be your sterile or non-sterile gloves for your minimally invasive procedures, your aprons when you are carrying out different procedures that may include splashing. You may be required to wear heavy-duty gloves when changing cylinders, when changing your spittoon or when carrying out procedures with your extra equipment such as your developer and fixer. PPE is there to protect you as well as your patients. Saliva is a known contagion as are many blood-borne diseases, which can be picked up through gentle probing when carrying out a CPITN or a BPE score. Whatever your sterilisation procedures, whether you have central sterilisation where your equipment is collected by an outside provider and returned sterile or whether you have a washer-disinfector and sterilizer on-site, make sure that when you are moving equipment from one area to another that you carry out your procedures in compliance with your HTMO1-05. Ensure that you do not touch sterile equipment after it has been through that process. When you have contaminated equipment, make sure you keep that to the dirty area sink and make sure you are wearing heavy-duty gloves whenever you are cleaning sharp objects. Have your needlestick procedure clearly displayed within your surgery.
Make sure that when you are handling your waste, it is separated into sharps waste, contaminated waste, clinical waste and domestic waste. Your own practice will have its procedures which should be clearly displayed within all the areas where waste is contained. Make sure that you are wearing protective eyewear when you are using a high-speed turbine or low-speed turbine as saliva and blood can splatter into the face. Make sure that you're wearing a mask or visor whenever you are carrying out any procedures on a patient. We ask patients to complete a medical history form, but they cannot put on there something they do not know themselves or they may not wish to disclose, something that they already have. Make sure that you use universal procedures to protect yourself and those within your practice.
