1. Why dentistry is a sharps workplace

This course

1 hour of verifiable CPD. Standalone. GDC Development Outcomes C and D. Related: Disinfection and Decontamination, COSHH, Health and Safety.

Suggested study time

• Duties and risks — 18 min
• Safer use and bins — 20 min
• Injury: first hour — 17 min
• Knowledge check — 5 min

The hazard

Needles, matrix bands, wires, burs, scalpels, suture needles, and the probe you left in a napkin. Blood-borne viruses of occupational concern include hepatitis B, hepatitis C and HIV. Most injuries are preventable. A few still happen. Both facts can be true.

UK healthcare sharps law

Employers must assess and reduce sharps risk: safer devices where reasonably practicable, information, training, and a ban on the dangerous habits that still show up in dental surgeries (recapping with two hands, passing an unsheathed needle, leaving burs in a handpiece pointed at a palm). Employees must use the devices and the bins they were trained on.

Hepatitis B vaccination

Clinical staff should have occupational hepatitis B immunisation arranged through occupational health, with a record of response where that is the local protocol. It is not a reason to be casual with sharps. It does not cover hepatitis C or HIV.

Culture

If the person who reports a needlestick is mocked, the next one will wash it in the sink and go home. Just culture applies here as in Human Factors.