OCDO - UK IPC Guidance for Dental Settings and revised SOPs

Please find below the latest statement from OCDO:

The Office of the Chief Dental Officer, England, have recently published UK IPC Guidance for dental settings, which can be viewed here.

This document has been considered and incorporated into the latest revision of our SOPs, which may be viewed here.

The revised SOPs incorporate the recently published COVID-19: infection prevention and control dental appendix  issued jointly by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC),Public Health Wales (PHW), Public Health Agency (PHA) Northern Ireland, Health Protection Scotland (HPS), Public Health Scotland, Public Health England and NHS England 

Key points to note

The IPC guidance and the revised SOPs address one of the key challenges facing dental practices; the duration of the post Aerosol Generating Procedure (AGP) downtime.  The IPC guidance details the variable duration of the post AGP downtime, with detail of the required mitigating measures and ventilation parameters. In summary where a surgery’s ventilation system  can achieve 6 to 9 Air Changes/Hour (ACH), a baseline post AGP downtime of 20 minutes is recommended.  Where there are 10 or more ACH, a baseline post AGP downtime of 15 minutes is recommended.

I would also ask you to note that as detailed in the UK IPC Guidance for dental settings FFP3 masks are recommended for AGP procedures. It is important that all dental professionals are offered the highest levels of protection as recommended. However, we recognise that across the system there are existing stocks of FFP2 masks and it is understood that it may be necessary for practices to continue to use these until staff are successfully fit tested and supplied with the appropriate FFP3.

With regards the position of CQC – given the publication of the IPC Guidance and the clarification that FFP3 are now the recommended level of protection, we have discussed with the regulator the logistics of the transition to FFP3 for all staff involved in delivering AGPs. In particular the logistics of fit testing and FFP3 supply may take a reasonable period of time. Practices/providers are advised to have a plan in place to demonstrate the steps they are taking to complete the transition to FFP3 masks for AGPs in a timely and safe manner.