CATEGORY – Staff Training

Mubbasher Khanzada provides advice on how dental practices can easily education patients about their own oral health and provide preventative dental care.

Summary

Preventive care relies heavily on the patient’s understanding of their own oral health and their compliance with professionally recommended treatment.

Patient education helps deliver the dental information that patients need, provides treatment justification, increases treatment acceptance and encourages an active involvement in preventive care.

The majority of patients are now accustomed to receiving information in a digital format, for example, email, social media or online.

A good dental practice website will be the first chance for a practice to provide its patients with good educational material.

Social media is one of the best ways of communicating with younger patients. Research suggests that as many as 10 million young people are active on social media platforms.

Glenys Bridges talks about new ways of carrying out professional development on a reduced budget.

Summary

With budgets squeezed because of reduced patient flow and increased infection control measures, the budget for team training must be carefully managed to get optimal value for money.

This can be easily achieved by up-skilling a team member as the training lead and enabling them to plan and facilitate both formal eCPD learning and training to keep clinical and operational skills up to date.

The objective of the team training lead role is to deliver learning programmes for the education and professional development of the dental team, including meeting regulatory requirements, supporting strengths and weaknesses within the team, and carrying out evaluation and improvement.

The principles of Bloom’s Taxonomy (bloomstaxonomy.net) can be used to underpin the learning and reflection process.

Q. What details should I ensure staff are writing on the dental records?

A:Dental professionals are required to make and keep accurate dental records of care provided to patients. In addition to the items listed below, you should ensure that patient records are accurate, complete, legible, up to date, stored and shared appropriately. The mandatory requirements in accordance with Faculty of General Dental Practice guidelines and General Dental Council standards are:…

Q. What should I do to ensure that my staff keep up to date with their knowledge and skills?

A. It is essential that all staff maintain their skills and keep up to date with the latest legislation and techniques required of them. The CQC will also check that your staff are keeping up to date under regulation 18 (staffing). This states that persons employed by the practice receive support, training, professional development, supervision and appraisal.

Glenys Bridges looks at how introducing a team training lead role can benefit the dental practice.

Summary

For activities such as infection control, safeguarding, information governance and radiation supervision, practices are already required to appoint a named lead person.

The role of a Team Training Lead is to craft team training activities to ensure that the practice delivers outstanding, patient-focused care.

The practice manager may choose to take on this lead role, or to delegate to a senior team member.

The dental Team Training Lead would require specialist training, role clarification in the form of a clear job description (see the Toolkit) and time allocation of more than 50 hours a month.

Glenys Bridges talks about how reflective practice is an essential part of CPD.

Summary

A reflective review is mindfully exploring the CPD experience, both at the time and afterwards.

A review should include: why you chose the specific learning activity; how it has added to your knowledge and skills, and how you will use this learning in the future for the benefit of your patients.

Dental staff need to understand the reasons and benefits of the CPD in order to gain the maximum benefit.

Balancing your professional development with a demanding workload

With dental practice managers focusing on attaining high standards of professionalism, the issue of continuing professional development is a concern. This article gives seven ways to successful engagement with organised training…

Dr Ravi Talati provides guidance on how to brief your staff on medical emergencies.

Summary

Training your staff regularly and thoroughly is essential.

Your practice must be adequately equipped to cope with a medical emergency.

Document your protocols and review your procedures.

Prepare to expect the unexpected.