Patient safety in primary care dentistry: where are we now?

Abstract

In contemporary healthcare settings, ensuring patient safety must be an underlying principal through which systems, teams, individuals and environments work in tandem to strive for. The adoption of a culture in the NHS where patient safety is given greater priority is key to improvement. Recent events at Mid-Staffordshire hospitals among others have brought patient safety into the minds of the public and it increasingly demands attention from clinicians, the press and governments. However, much of the work into patient safety has been completed in the secondary care field with very little work completed in primary care settings. In primary care dentistry, improving patient safety is a relatively new concept with a distinct lack of evidence base. In this article, we discuss what patient safety is and debate its relevance to primary care dentistry. We also look at previous work completed in this field and make recommendations for future work to address the current lack of research.

Impact of early clinical exposure on the learning experience of undergraduate dental students

“…Although no concerns were raised regarding treatment of patients by early year students, ensuring patient safety is of fundamental importance in all clinical disciplines and is the main source of public concern . Dentistry routinely involves invasive operative procedures and poses a significant risk of irreversible harm to patients . Our students receive rigorous training in a simulated dental learning environment and are authorised to carry out only those clinical procedures for which they have been assessed summatively.…”

“…15 Dentistry routinely involves invasive operative procedures and poses a significant risk of irreversible harm to patients. 16 Our students receive rigorous training in a simulated dental learning environment and are authorised to carry out only those clinical procedures for which they have been assessed summatively. Moreover, the students are supervised closely when performing treatment on patients and structured remediation processes are in place for underperforming students.…”

Review of never and serious events related to dentistry 2005–2014

“…It is recognised that patient safety incident reporting is particularly poor in dentistry compared with other healthcare settings. [8][9][10][11][12] Both NHS and Independent providers are obliged to report serious events, and there are stipulated guidelines regarding these events (including 'never events') clarifying the responsibility for all health care providers in their duty to report. Absence of a centralised and open reporting culture in dentistry means that we will not benefit from a learning culture and repeated errors compromising patient safety will continue to persist.…”

Questionnaire for measuring organisational attributes in dental-care practices: psychometric properties and test–retest reliability

“…Patient safety has different definitions, focused on reduction and prevention of unnecessary harm. An overview is given by Bailey et al …”

“…Patient safety has different definitions, focused on reduction and prevention of unnecessary harm 5 . An overview is given by Bailey et al 5 . However, within the dental-care setting the consideration of patient safety and the exploration of potential errors is a relatively new concept 6 .…”