Dental Nurse Report: Legal, Ethical, and Practical Aspects of the Role

This report provides a comprehensive overview of the legal, ethical, and practical responsibilities of a dental nurse. It begins by outlining key legal and regulatory requirements, including the Dentist Act 1984, the Data Protection Act 1998, and guidelines from the Department of Health and the Care Quality Commission. The report analyzes ethical principles, emphasizing patient interests, effective communication, informed consent, confidentiality, and the importance of a clear complaints procedure. Task 2 focuses on providing feedback and support within a dental team, identifying effective communication strategies and complaint handling procedures. The conclusion highlights the importance of establishing clear complaint procedures to build patient trust. The report includes references to relevant literature and guidelines, underscoring the importance of adherence to legal and ethical standards in dental nursing practice.

Dental Nurse Task

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
1. Legal and regulatory requirement in context of dental nursing..............................................1
2. Explaining different guidelines which dental nurse has to follow..........................................1
3. Analysing the way ethical as well as professional guidance related to different practices.....2
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................2
1. Providing feedback and support to individual in a team ........................................................2
2. Identifying procedure for handling complaints ......................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................3
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................4

INTRODUCTION
Dental nurse has various roles to play but one of the important duty which they have to
perform is to ensure compliance of all laws. It is very important for dental to work according to
legislations, as this will assist them in eliminating legal issues.
Present report have focus on identifying the different laws which dental nurse has to
follow. It will also include guidelines which is required to be followed by dental nurse in order to
facilitate safe practices.
TASK 1
1. Legal and regulatory requirement in context of dental nursing.
Dentist act 1984 : This act is applicable to practice of dentistry In England. It is the duty of
dental nurses to work within their scope of practices.
Dental practice act : This legislation states that dental nurses or professional must undergo
training during their professional life n order to practice dentistry.
Code of dental ethics: This regulation states that it is very much essential for l Surgeon as a
health professional educated and trained in surgical and medical treatment of diseases of the
Oral cavity (Trayner, Nguyen and Bagg, 2018.) .
2. Explaining different guidelines which dental nurse has to follow
Data protection act, 1998: this act is formulated by the parliament for protecting personal data
stored on computers. According to this legislation its is the duty of dental nurses to maintain the
confidentiality of information provided by employees or services users. As per this act, role of
dental nurse is to fairly as well as lawfully processed data.
Department of health guidelines and regulations: Department of health formulates as well as
implements policies as well as guidelines for bringing improvement in quality of dental care and
to cater the needs of service user.
Care quality commissions: It is basically the regulatory authority which regulates health as well
as social care services in England. Function of Care quality commission is to register health and
adult social care service providers in England. It is their duty to monitor that whether standards
are being followed by health and social care institution or not. Role of Care quality commissions
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to ensure that carte providers have implemented an effective system as well as procedures for
providing safety to service users.
Direct impact of direct access on each registrant groups: As per this regulation dental
professional or nurses execute their full scope of practices without prescription. But condition is
that dental nurses is required to have confidence that they have knowledge and abilities to treat
patients (Bernstein, Garcia and Tinanoff, 2017.).
3. Analysing the way ethical as well as professional guidance related to different practices
There are basically nine principles which are required to be followed by dental nurses or
professional while executing their routine practices these are:
 Before making any decision they need to consider the interest of patient.
 It is important for dental nurses to communicate effectively with service user.
 Dental nurse before providing treatment must take consent from patient.
 It is the duty of dental nurse to maintain confidentiality of patient information.
 They need to develop clear and effective complaints procedure
 Dental nurses should work with colleagues in a way that
for fulfilling patients’ best interests (Sunley, Reid and Dunn, 2018).
 Raise concerns if patients are at risk
 It is required by dental nurses to ensure that personal behaviour maintains
patients’ confidence
TASK 2
1. Providing feedback and support to individual in a team
Key people Way to provide active support Way to provide feedback
Patients Active listening By developing clear complaint
handling procedure
Team members Teaching and training Constructive feedback
Careers making appointments, getting
involved in the administration
of the practice
Training and teaching
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Others with whom individual
has supporting relationship
Direct and effective
communication
Mentoring
2. Identifying procedure for handling complaints
Complaints arises customers does not get the services which they expect. Role and duty
of dental professional to deal professionally as well as properly with complaints made by service
user. It is very much important for dental professional to solve the customer complaint quickly as
well as smoothly. There are basically two stages involved in the procedure of complaint handling
these are :
Stage 1 : local resolution : Most complaints of service users are resolved in-house by the dental
professional or the practice complaints manager.
The parliamentary and health service ombudsman has provided six principles for an effective
complaint handling these are :
 It is part of your responsibility as a dental professional
to deal with complaints properly and professionally.
It is the duty of dental nurse to ensure that there is an effective written complaints
Procedure where you work; follow the complaints' procedure at all times;respond to complaints
within the time limits set out in the procedure and provide a constructive response to the
complaints (Peate and Lane, 2017).
Stage 2: patients who are not satisfied with the outcome of local resolution, the second stage
involves referral to the appropriate Ombudsman, who can carry out an independent investigation.
CONCLUSION
It has been concluded from the report that there are various duties as well as
responsibilities which dental nurses haver to fulfil. It has been suggested that that dental nursing
department should establish clear complaining procedures, as this will help them in gaining
customers trust.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Trayner, K., Nguyen, M., Hopps, L., Christie, M., Roy, K. and Bagg, J., 2018. Use of safety
syringes for administration of local anaesthesia among a sample of UK primary care dental
professionals. British dental journal. 225(10). pp.957.
Bernstein, J., Garcia, R. and Tinanoff, N., 2017. Listening to paediatric primary care nurses: a
qualitative study of the potential for interprofessional oral health practice in six federally
qualified health centres in Massachusetts and Maryland. BMJ open. 7(3). pp.e014124.
Sunley, K., Reidy, M.P. and Dunn, H., 2018. Essential practice for infection prevention and
control: RCN guidance for nursing staff, 2/2. British Journal of Healthcare
Assistants.12(1). pp.28-33.
Scully, C., 2017. Churchill's Pocketbooks Clinical Dentistry E-Book. Elsevier Health Sciences.
Peate, I. and Lane, J., 2017. A tale of two countries: enrolled nurses in the UK and Gibraltar.
British Journal of Healthcare Assistants. 11(3) .pp.140-147.
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