National Dental Advisory Committee - Emergency Drugs & Equipment in Primary Dental Care

Requirements

• Emergency drugs must be available in the dental practice at all times.
• Emergency equipment must be available in the dental practice at all times.
• Automatic External Defibrillators (AED) must be available in all dental practices.
• The requirement to take emergency drugs and equipment to each episode of domiciliary care should be on the basis of a risk assessment.
• If the risk assessment deems the domiciliary care to have a raised level of risk, emergency drugs and equipment must be available to the dental team;
  • A secondary set of emergency drugs and equipment must remain in the practice, when patients are being treated, if the primary set are taken on a domiciliary visit.
• Dental teams must familiarise themselves with current Resuscitation Council guidance.
• Records of staff medical emergency training consistent with the training requirements stated in this document must be made available at practice inspection.
• Resuscitation training must focus on the dental team, using scenarios to practise assessing and managing sick patients using the ABCDE rapid assessment tool. A course outline should be provided and distributed prior to the training session.
• The resuscitation training must include a practical demonstration and training in the use of an Automatic External Defibrillator (AED).