Risk Assessment

Why you need staff training

The Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 require every employer and self-employed person to make a suitable and sufficient assessment of the health and safety risks to employees and others affected, in order to put in place appropriate control measures.

However, it should be considered that all dental staff, not just the employer and regardless of registration have both legal and ethical obligations to take part in the management of health and safety in the workplace.

Undertaking training in Health & Safety should be seen as a process of protecting both your colleagues and all external visitors, (Patients, contractors etc) with notable consequences for both the employer and employee of not complying with such legal duties.

The process of risk assessment is designed to work alongside health & safety by means of examining the elements in the workplace that could cause harm.

Effective control of this process will help you to decide if sufficient precautions have been taken or whether more is required to prevent accidents.

This article is here to give you an overview of the essential aspects of these two complimentary, yet critical Risk assessment tools for all dental staff.

How does risk assessment fit into the practice and health & safety?

Risk assessment compliments Health & Safety by way of examining those potentially harmful elements in the practice. Effective auditing helps to clarify if the relevant precautions have been set in place. If not, take further action is required to prevent injury or ill health.

Who's responsible to carry out the Risk Assessment?

All practice should have an appointed person to be trained to the relevant qualification to carry out risk assessments in their workplace, but all staff members have a duty of care to each other to help in identifying potential risks in the practice.

The Risk Assessment process

key stages

Identifying potential risks

A risk is something that has the potential to cause harm. E.g. Dealing with (re-sheathing) needles, Clinical waste.

Assessing the risks

A risk is the likelihood that the hazard will cause harm. An example of which would be not wearing the appropriate PPE. The outcome of which could lead to prosecution and / or a disciplinary hearing with the GDC.

Assessing the potential risk will depend on effectively understanding and handling the following core areas:

Full auditable documentation

It is a legal requirement that all practices with 5 or more staff to record the findings. Even with less than 5, it is still good practice to keep records.

Review and revise

It is recommended that you periodically review all risk assessments to agree that the controls you have set in place are still valid. If not, make the necessary changes.

Is the risk acceptable?

There are risks around us every day, many of which we just discard without really understanding the real potential hazards. This is because we feel the risk is acceptable. You need a clear understanding or what is an acceptable risk and what is potentially real / harmful risk.

Control of risks

You need to prioritize those risk elimination measures in your practice:

Remove hazard or stop process until improvements have been made. (i.e. providing needle guards)
Replace potential hazard with something less harmful
Isolate hazard away from potential risk. E.g. Bleach locked in cupboard, not left in staff / patient toilets
Design safety measures to enable safe / acceptable working conditions
Train / educate, supervise & communicate to all practice staff on all of the above

Real life example: working with needles

The person carrying out the task, expected to be the dentist, but dental nurses do often take this responsibility with needles dealt with up to 20 times a day.

The dentist, who has the legal responsibility to handle all needles, will pass it to the nurse to resheath, thereby transferring risk to another person.

Failure to handle this potentially harmful process could result in a needle stick injury, possible transmission of infectious disease, inflammation to wound site (potential for serious health effects).

The simplest way to minimize the risk are to ensure all nurses and other key staff is fully trained and qualified, but the risks and potential affects to health will always be present.

Conclusion

All dental staff have both legal and ethical obligations to take part in the management of health and safety in the workplace. Statutory registration places responsibilities on you for the protection of patients, both in the treatment provided and their health, safety and welfare while they are in the practice.

What should you do now... think

If you are carrying out risk assessments, have you been trained and are you competent with the process?
Assess the risks in your practice. How real are they?
Assessments those at most risk
When was the last time you reviewed your risk assessment policy
If hazards and you feel there is a genuine risk, the talk to your employer or a colleague
Review your own working procedures. How safe do you think you are and what affects do your actions have on the rest of your team, patients and all other visitors to your practice?
Do you include health and safety & Risk assessment training as part of your CPD? especially for staff inductions.

This information was kindly provided by Jane Bonehill of DenMed training www.denmed-uk.com

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