Cleaning

Question 1

Health and social care act 2008

Answer 1

dental practices should have suitable cleaning protocols in place. due to high risk of infection in clinical areas, equipment used to clean these should be segregated from other equipment and should be isolated

Question 2

Colour coding

Answer 2

red- bathrooms
green - kitchen
blue - non clinical (reception)
yellow - clinical

Question 3

Zoning

Answer 3

dirty to clean workflow is essential in reducing the risk of cross infection. ideal to have separate rooms and zones should be clearly labelled - decontamination to take place as far away from chair as possible.
- a clean to dirty airflow is required when designing a surgery or fulfilling infection control guidelines

Question 4

Cleaning of equipment and instruments

Answer 4

those not disposable after single use should be sterilised in an autoclave

• all solid debris must be removed from the items either by manual cleaning, ultrasonic or washer-disinfector
• only then should items be autoclaved as any residual solid debris will harbour microorganisms and spores and shield them from sterilisation process
• hand pieces cannot go in ultrasonic
• sterilised instruments stored in lidded trays and pouches as well as ‘use by’ date stamped

Question 5

Manual cleaning

Answer 5

-wear full PPE, clean items asap after use to avoid contaminants drying onto their surfaces
-cold water and detergent as hot water fixes blood
-nylon bristled autoclavable brushes as wire causes corrosion
-scrub under water
-separate bowl with distilled/reverse osmosis water to rinse
-tap water contains unwanted chemicals
-inspect using illuminated magnifier
items autoclaved asap before drying
those that are to be bagged before vacuum sterilising should be dried thoroughly first