Sterilisation
Your Safety Is Our Top Priority
At Weston Family Practice, your health and safety is our top priority. We do everything we can to make sure our surgery is as clean and sterile as possible, so you do not have to worry about getting sick at your appointment. Especially during times of greater health concerns, you can leave your worry at the door and focus on your dental health. It is important to us that nothing gets in the way of providing high-quality, personalised care to each of our patients.
Further Heightened Sterilisation Standards
It is common sense that a medical facility like a dental surgery would have procedures in place to make sure the surgery is clean for patients and staff. We are proud to exceed the standards of the Department of Health as we make patient safety and surgery Sterilisation our top priorities.
Our dental implements are thoroughly cleaned and sterilised before each use and we make certain there is no contamination possible. More than simply using soap and water, we sterilise our dental instruments using steam in a machine called an autoclave. The tools are subjected to high enough heat to kill any bacteria or viruses that may have been transferred to the tool during use.
Wherever we can, we use disposable materials and barriers that we throw away after each use, eliminating the need to sterilise them.
Personal Protective Measures
Our dentists keep themselves clean and wear all standard personal protective equipment to make certain our patients remain safe. This equipment includes gloves, eyewear and masks and is all single-use, discarded after each patient. If their clothing gets soiled during their shift, we keep extra clean clothing for them to change into as needed.
Filtered Water Lines
It is important in any dental surgery that the water used to rinse our patients’ mouths is clean and free of harmful bacteria. Our water lines are filtered to get rid of bacteria and microorganisms that would not pose a threat to healthy patients, but might be more dangerous to older patients or those with compromised immune systems.
We regularly monitor the levels of bacteria in our water lines and follow the manufacturer’s recommendations for cleaning out our system to make sure it is functioning like new.
Disinfection Procedures
There are rooms in a dental surgery that are used by both patients and staff. In addition to regular surgery cleaning done outside our surgery hours, we take special care to disinfect surfaces touched by patients and staff in the well-travelled rooms. Several times a day, we go through each room and wipe down frequently touched surfaces using medical-grade disinfectants, including countertops, tables, doorknobs, cabinets, sinks and restrooms.
A Team Effort
Keeping our patients safe and healthy takes the whole team, and we each do everything we can to maintain high standards. In addition to the precautions above, our team members stay out of the surgery when they are feeling unwell, and we ask that our patients do the same—for the health and well-being of our community.
If you have any questions about our procedures or would like to talk about making special accommodations, please call us.