We have of course seen the report commissioned by the Care Quality Commission which triggered the striking off of Desmond D’Mello for ignoring important infection control procedures. Here’s an insight in to the report and what it tells us about the mindset of the man the media are calling the ‘Dirty Dentist.’
Areas of Inspection
Five key areas where looked at, and their overall outcomes were as follows:
- Care and welfare of people who use services – Met this standard
- Cleanliness and infection control – Action needed
- Management of medicines – Met this standard
- Safety, availability and suitability of equipment – Action needed
- Assessing and monitoring the quality of service provision – Action needed
So of the five areas of inspection, only two were met; with the important ones being missed the ones that put people’s health and lives most at risk.
So let’s take a look at what the findings of the report identified and what this tells us about why D’Mello choose to turn his back on his patients wellbeing and put their health in jeopardy.
Cleanliness and Infection Control
This is the main one relevant for our cases.
The reports confirms that “people were not protected from the risk of infection because appropriate guidance had not been followed.” One key thing was that the practice did have infection control procedures in accordance with the Health and Social Care Act (2008) – but there were limited examples of this being in operation. This tells us that they knew, as you would expect, that these procedures are important and must be in place; but there was a total disregard for actually enforcing them.
The ‘profits before patients’ argument is made stronger by this kind of evidence.
As we are already aware, toilets were being used to store equipment which posed a significant risk of instruments coming in to contact with bodily fluids. This hadn’t even been identified by staff, and no action was taken to even remedy this. This tells us that some staff may have had no clue of the risks involved, or may not have cared. You’d think hygiene knowledge would be a standard, so for this sort of thing to happen is absolutely horrifying.
Mops and cleaning equipment were also stored in toilets – simple stuff that I’ve known since my teenage days working in catering; common knowledge aside!
The Daybrook decontamination room contained equipment which reduced space, such as an x-ray machine and a dental chair. It was also found that it had been used as a recovery room leading to significant risks of contamination in the very area that was supposed to be used for cleaning and sterilisation.
There were examples found of non-date stamped bags containing supposedly sterilised equipment, and damaged packaging, with around 10% of equipment found with concerns. This shows a total disregard for the important infection control procedures designed to protect people.
In addition it was also noted under the “Safety, availability and suitability of equipment” section that, alarmingly, isolation and control switches for x-ray machines were located within controlled areas, which can put both patients and staff at risk.
What we see here is a surgery where there ought to have been knowledge from D’Mello about the need and importance of adhering to infection control procedures; but there was a total disregard for actually enforcing them. The most popular theory to date as to why this is the case is because he chose to put profits before patients by seeing high volumes of people by cutting corners.
Again, this sort of stuff should be basic common sense to a trained dentist – but the fact that the procedures were there and simply not being followed shows even more of a blatant disregard for patient safety and wellbeing.
This is of course entirely unacceptable. Our specialist Daybrook Dental Team are now leading the fight for justice for those affected, and you can contact us on 0800 634 7575.