Htm 01-05- Standardising Medical Sanitising Process
The Health Technical Memorandum 01-05 decontamination regulation which is going to
be in effect in 2011 is designed to standardise the sanitisation process of dental equipments. The regulation also aims to provide a secure and safe environment for the disinfecting process. It is designed to offer guidelines to dentists, clinical staff, servicing engineers and surgery designers.
The HTM 01-05 regulation aims to bring several material changes to ensure effective sanitization of dental equipments. The regulation requires all dental practices to re-sterilise any re-usable equipment every thirty days. Moreover, the practices have to demonstrate that they can manage this process without error. As per the new regulation dental clinics have to replace their old washer-disinfector with fully compliant washer-disinfectors. They also have to reorganise the reprocessing area into dirt free and clean system. The regulation also calls for the instrumentation of safe and secure storages so that sterilised equipments will not be exposed to air/pathogenic contamination.
The main objective of the HTM 01-05 guideline is to improve the quality of health care. To standardise the sanitisaion process in the country, the regulation adopts test procedures from the international standard for washers/disinfectors.
To attain the standards prescribed by the HTM 01-05, dental clinics have to bring in many changes. To help facilities ensure effective and HTM 01-05 compliant sterilising, wrapping and labeling, a range of cost effective devices are now available in the market.
You can avail a colour coded system which helps technicians to easily discern sterilised instruments from instruments that are yet to be sanitised. Thermo-chromatic ink is another great way to ensure efficient sterilization process. As the ink on the medical equipments changes colour when they are disinfected properly, technicians can easily identify when an item has been successfully sterilised.
Embrace any of these cost effective methods and ensure that your dental clinic works in line with HTM 01-05 regulations.