Healthcare waste management requires exceptional due diligence to ensure each item finds its way into the appropriate waste stream, and that members of the public and the wider environment are protected.
Pre-acceptance waste audits are one key element of this. Dental professionals must keep up to date with the latest legislation to ensure pre-acceptance audits are completed at appropriate points of the waste workflow. Failure to do so may mean waste management services cannot take items from a practice, putting unnecessary pressure on clinicians to find a way to store healthcare waste safely, as more builds up over time.
What is a pre-acceptance waste audit?
The need for a pre-acceptance audit begins further down the line in the waste management workflow. A permitted waste treatment and disposal site takes on items from a dental practice which cannot simply be sent to a landfill. This could include pharmaceutical items, waste that presents a risk of infection, anatomical waste and more. To be able to manage this waste effectively and safely, a treatment and disposal centre must know about the waste and its composition before it arrives. The audit also allows a facility to confirm that the items are technically and legally suitable for their team to manage.
Where a waste management service requires a pre-acceptance audit, the burden falls on the waste producer, i.e. the dental practice, to provide complete and necessary information. While these audits are undoubtedly in-depth and time-consuming, they need only be completed every two years for dental practices producing under five tonnes of clinical waste in a calendar year. An audit may need to be completed sooner if there are significant changes to onsite practices. This scenario is quite rare, which is likely to be a relief for clinicians and practice managers across the UK.
Waste audits can also provide insights that help clinicians make evidence-based changes to daily workflows. Health Technical Memorandum 07-01 (HTM 07-01) notes that waste audits are essential for demonstrating compliance with regulatory standards, informing waste management policies and procedures to better align them with key NHS principles, such as the circular economy, and for monitoring progress towards waste hierarchy targets and in-practice strategies.
A significant responsibility
To ensure waste management services can confidently take items off of the hands of dental practices and draw conclusions that can influence everyday procedures, an audit must be comprehensive and accurate. Clinicians should know the basic criteria for the information required by a waste management site, and where to find any further details should they be needed when reviewing all forms.
Every pre-acceptance audit must be carried out on the grounds of the practice; relying solely on work completed over the phone or online is not sufficient. Dental practices should leave this responsibility to an appropriately trained and experienced team member, or have an external auditor complete the task. Consider treating a waste pre-acceptance audit as you would any complex case for your dental patients; training, competency and confidence are non-negotiable qualities required by the auditor to ensure the best outcomes.
Get the details down
Information within a pre-acceptance audit will include the source of the waste (in this instance, dental care), details of the waste streams used by the practice and the types produced, a list of all functional areas on the premises, and how waste has been segregated and stored.
Visual checks can help establish the contents of bulk waste containers, and discussions with the dental team (and observations of their actions) can inform the validity of attempts to segregate and store waste in line with HTM 07-01 standards. Where failures arise, they must be seen as an opportunity to improve workflows in the practice; these changes, once implemented, should also be recorded.
The information needed to complete a pre-acceptance audit report requires further depth, and clinicians can find more details in the guidance issued by the Environment Agency and NHS England. Support can also be sought from waste management experts and services.
The Initial Medical team can provide clinicians with leading waste containers to fit every dental requirement and expert insights into everything from waste segregation to the completion of pre-acceptance audits. Dental professionals can speak to Initial Medical team members about optimising in-practice procedures and organising safe, routine waste collection schedules.
Getting the pre-acceptance audit for waste items correct saves plenty of headaches for the dental team. The process is thorough but necessary to keep clinicians, waste collectors, the public and the wider environment safe, so be sure it is completed accurately the first time.
References available on request.
For more information visit www.initial.co.uk/medical