Dental Tribune United Kingdom Edition

as it sought to re-assess the pa- tient to see if further shock was required.TheAEDadministereda second shock to the patient and it was after this that a pulse returned. The team continued to monitor the patient and the paramedics arrived very soon after this. The paramedics were full of praise for the team as they had felt that the pa- tient had been well managed and the fact that he had a vi- able pulse and was breath- ing unassisted was testament to this. Serious Event Analysis: As a consequence of the inci- dent the practice will carry out a Serious Event Analysis and subsequently audit the event. This will allow those involved to see what (if any) mistakes were made and how the practice can avoid such mistakes in future. The analysis and subsequent audit will also allow all the good points to be drawn out and praise given where due. Defibrillators in practice There is no requirement un- der Law for dental practices to have an AED but the Resus- citation Council UK do rec- ommend them in their guid- ance ME in dental practice and the indemnity organisations ask that dental professionals study this guidance very careful- ly and consider the implications of not having one. There are some interesting facts that those who are resistant to purchasing one should consider: • Cardiac arrests outside the hospital environment have, on average, a six per cent survival rate • If a Cardiac Arrest is witnessed and an AED is applied within five minutes survival rates in- crease to 49 - 74 per cent Impact: It is the practice policy that in the event of a major medi- cal emergency the remainder of the session be cancelled. This was done by the re- ception team and immedi- ate event analysis was one of a state of shock amongst the staff. Time was needed for the treating staff to “get their head around it” as many had felt that the patient had passed away during the im- mediate situation yet the fact that the patient left alive is testament to the training the whole team had recently undergone at the Queens Medi- cal Centre, Nottingham in their simulation suite. The team had the opportunity to train using a Sim-Man model that directly interacts with those undergo- ing training, a valuable yet un- der used resource that, as far as we’re concerned, paid for itself. The patient (at the time of writ- ing) was still in hospital but was comfortable and recovering well. There are no studies to show the uptake of AEDs in dental practice but the author currently works across three practices and only the where this incident oc- curred currently has one (with no plans on the others to buy a device) DT ‘The paramedics were full of praise for the team as they had felt that the patient had been well man- aged and the fact that he had a via- ble pulse and was breathing unas- sisted was testa- ment to this’ 11FeatureOctober 22 - 28, 2012United Kingdom Edition About the author Shaun Howe trained and quali- fied in the Royal Army Dental Corps in 1993. He works in the NHS and privately full time in Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire. He sat on the GDC Fitness to Practise Panel from 2003- 2008 at which time he became one of three DCP Local Advisers to Dental Protection Ltd; he is also a Key Opin- ion Leader for Philips Sonicare and is currently training in Mentorship to be- come part of their Transitional Support Program. Shaun has a keen interest in Clinical Governance and is an FGDP trained practice appraiser. He currently sits on the Editorial Board of DH&T and Dental Tribune and contributes to these often. He has spoken widely to groups all across the UK drawing on his experi- ences on FtP and his work with Dental Protection.