Infection Control and Health and Safety
What this domain tests
The Dental Council Code of Practice on Infection Prevention and Control and Irish health and safety law underpin this domain. It tests standard precautions, decontamination, sterilisation, sharps and waste management, immunisation and workplace risk assessment.
Core rules and concepts
- Treat all blood and body fluids as potentially infectious: hand hygiene, PPE, safe sharps handling and spill management.
- Reprocess reusable instruments through a validated decontamination cycle: clean, inspect, package, sterilise, store and trace.
- Use a validated steam steriliser; wrapped instruments typically require a vacuum-assisted cycle at 134–137°C for at least 3 minutes, following the manufacturer's validated cycle. Log every cycle and quarantine until released.
- Single-use items must not be reused. Critical items must be sterile; non-critical surfaces require cleaning and appropriate disinfection.
- Maintain a safety statement, risk assessments, chemical safety data, vaccination/immunisation records and staff training.
Worked example
After a extraction, contaminated forceps are cleaned with detergent, dried, inspected, placed in a validated pouch and sterilised in a vacuum autoclave at 134–137°C for the validated holding time. The cycle is logged and the pouch checked for integrity and indicator change before storage. If the pouch is damaged or the cycle fails, the instrument is reprocessed; it is not used.
Traps that cost marks
Using chemical disinfection alone for critical instruments; relying on glass-bead sterilisation; overfilling the autoclave; failing to log cycles; recapping needles by hand; wearing gloves instead of performing hand hygiene; ignoring COSHH-type chemical risks.