Safeguarding in general dental practice: A toolkit for dental teams

In April 2019, Public Health England published new guidelines for dental team in their document ‘Safeguarding in general dental practice: A toolkit for dental teams’.

All members of the dental team are encouraged to ensure they understand and comply with these guidelines.

‘Sometimes a ‘feeling’ or noticing something that ‘just doesn’t seem right’ can play a vital part in the jigsaw that can make the difference to someone in a vulnerable position.

In some cases of abuse, contact with healthcare professionals could have made a difference at key moments in time.’

Recommendations

The Safeguarding Toolkit recommends that:

• Every dental practice has a named Safeguarding Lead.
• All team members undertake the appropriate level of training.
• All practices have a Safeguarding reporting system in place and all team members know to whom and how they should report concerns and are familiar with the practice procedures for this.
• All team members know how to access the NHS Safeguarding app for local safeguarding contact details.
• All team members read the Safeguarding Toolkit as part of their induction process. Note: The guide should be seen as supplementary to Safeguarding Training, not as a replacement for it.
• The Toolkit is discussed as an agenda item at team meetings to consider how best to embed training within the practice and how best to ensure training is regularly refreshed.

Training Requirements

The training requirements for the dental team are:

• Safeguarding Level 1 for non-clinical team members such as receptionists and administrators.
• Safeguarding Level 2 for clinical team members such as dentists and dental care professionals.
• Safeguarding Level 3 for clinical team members such as paediatric dentists and dental care professionals.

Level 1 training should be 2 hours of verifiable CPD. Level 2 training should be 3 hours of verifiable CPD. Both of Level 1 and Level 2 can be carried out via online training.

Apolline Safeguarding Children and Vulnerable Adults CPD

Our Safeguarding Children and Vulnerable Adult CPD Level 2 has been updated to reflect the information presented in the toolkit.

If you have recently completed the 3 hour Safeguarding CPD course we would highly recommend that you read the Safeguarding Toolkit rather than resit the CPD course again.

If you have not recently completed Safeguarding Level 2 training we offer a free online 3 CPD course.

In-practice training is also available to book.

Call us on 0800 193 1033 to chat to our friendly support team!