An outline of appropriate risk management in the use of temporary dental nursing staff in practice

It'll never happen, it might not happen, it shouldn't happen, it happened! The risk of human error represents the greater threat to complex systems such as the delivery of healthcare rather than technical failure. Much of the legislation recently introduced in UK healthcare services, Building a Safer NHS; An Organisation with a Memory and A First Class Service evolved from a growing awareness of adverse incidents occurring in the healthcare setting. In general dental practice the absence of a trained skilled dental nurse with local knowledge of the working environment constitutes a risk to patient safety. Be this through the lack of appropriate selection, training, induction or clinical supervision of an appropriate stand in. Be it due to poor governance, audit or quality control the cost to the practitioner, practice, profession and patient can be high. To mitigate this risk a comprehensive risk management system will be needed in practice. Planning to prevent such risks requires understanding, analysing, managing and costing the risk. Success depends on robust systems for screening, contracting and training of staff within an educated team of safety orientated personnel supported by suitable frameworks for standards, resources, policies, protocols, processes and checks within a clearly identifiable chain of command.