Health Technical Memorandum (HTM) 01-05: Decontamination in Primary Care Dental Practices

Statement from Barry Cockcroft, Chief Dental Officer - England (Directorate of Commissioning & Systems Management)

HTM01-05 The Department of Health for England is committed to improving the quality of decontamination in primary care dental practices, to ensure that patients and dental staff are receiving and providing dental care in a safe environment. To help improve the quality of decontamination carried out locally within the dental practice, the Department has issued this guidance: Health Technical Memorandum (HTM) 01-05: Decontamination in Primary Care Dental Practices, produced a self-audit tool to complement the guidance and is involved in conducting a National Survey of Dental Decontamination.

This guidance aims to raise performance progressively, and wherever possible, gives options in terms of approach to achieve the necessary requirements. The aim is that all practices will have met the HTM 'essential requirements' within 12 months of receiving this guidance, this will include having a detailed plan showing how practices will work towards achieving the 'best practice' guidelines also contained within the document. The guidance is evidence based where such is available, however, lack of evidence in some key areas has been highlighted during the drafting process. In several such instances, the Department has commissioned new research projects, to inform future revisions of this document.

Practices can assess their level of HTM compliance using the audit tool, which accompanies this guidance. This tool has been developed with the Infection Prevention Society and the CD ROM version, available shortly, is hyperlinked to the HTM 01-05 so that it will highlight, for each question, specific paragraphs in the guidance. It also has analytic capabilities that will not only allow practices to ensure they are compliant with 'essential requirements' or their level of compliance with best practice but will also generate action plans for further improvements.

At present there is little national evidence regarding the performance of practices in terms of local dental instrument decontamination, the equipment used and the premises from which primary care dentistry is provided in England. The National Dental Decontamination Survey, to be carried out this year, will provide us with the information we need for future revisions to the HTM guidance. I would urge all practices, if invited, to participate in this survey, which is aimed solely at improving our knowledge and evidence base for future policy decisions.

This guidance will be of use to all dental practices, including those who have no NHS commitment. The guidance follows the essential principles given in the 'Health and Social Care Act: 2008 Code of Practice for the NHS on the prevention and control of healthcare associated infections and related guidance' (the HCAI Code of Practice). The 2009 revision of the HCAI Code of Practice makes specific reference to this HTM. By 2011, it is expected that all dental providers will be registered with the Care Quality Commission; this is the new regulatory organisation, which will have responsibility to ensure the full range of requirements for registration are met. Compliance with this HTM should satisfy the essential requirements around the decontamination of dental equipment.

All NHS dental practices will have received a hard copy of the guidance and audit tool. Practices who have no NHS commitment can request a copy from www.orderline.dh.gov.uk, or by e-mailing dh@prolog.uk.com quoting reference number 292338. The hard copy is limited to one per practice, further copies can be downloaded from the Department website on:

http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Aboutus/Chiefprofessionalofficers/Chiefdentalofficer/DH_4134424

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