Waste is an expensive business

Following news in the CDO update of the health department's plans to further delay the promised review of HTM 01-05 until 2012-2013, I thought I would revisit this topic from a different perspective.

When HTM 01-05 was devised and gifted to the profession the first reaction seemed to be of utter outrage. I was worried that dentists would down drills and form picket lines with buckets, mops and their trusty portable suction units. Although I may be joking, it certainly got the profession thinking about value for money.

It's no joke; decontamination is a very expensive business. The implementation of this memorandum coincided with Care Quality Commission registration and then more recently with new contract pilots. If that wasn't enough the new residents at number 10 decided to go a bit further and throw a new health bill in for good measure. Whilst most of the health bill will leave dentistry untouched, our colleagues in dental public health seem like innocent victims this time. So dentists could be forgiven for thinking that they were receiving electro convulsive shock therapy on an intermittent basis and are left wondering, what next?