The Society has been working with a number of dental nurse registrants and representatives to establish a definition that is worthy of the current-day dental nurse and dental nursing. A recent research piece undertaken by the Executive Director of the Society has made it very clear that being valued, recognised, and acknowledged shapes and informs their professional identity.
How then can we expect to be valued if there is no one key definition and there are so many definitions out there that at best, align dental nurses to being assistive and task-focused? The Society calls for the profession to reconsider its definitions and align to the definition that has come to fruition from the dental nurses who participated in the working group.
As part of this work participants were asked to gather a range of available definitions relating to the dental nurse and dental nursing, it very quickly became apparent that such variations are detrimental to the professional identity, self-esteem and professional status of the dental nurse – language and inference matters. Far too many definitions are simply representative of the role and or duties rather than being a true definition. Others completely devalue and brush aside the skills and talents of the dental nurse.
This work comes on the back of work looking at ‘the perception of self, the perceptions of others on self and the impact of the public (patients) on self. We constantly hear about workforce issues, the reduction in new applicants to the field, the number of newly qualified dental nurses not registering, and a number leaving in the first 6-12 months of starting in the profession as a registrant. We also know through our surveys undertaken since 2016 that being valued is a priority and what better place to begin than to have a definition of the dental nurse and dental nursing that speaks to the value of this professional group.
The Society has produced a shorter definition and an extended definition, that speak to the whole field of dental nurses and one that certainly reflects the more modern day dental nurse. The definition posed by the GDC as well as others is disappointing.
“Dental nurses are registered professionals who provide clinical support to registrants and patients” (GDC)
For further information please contact us admin@bdns.org.uk
.The shorter definition is:
Dental nursing is multifaceted and takes place in a number of settings. Dental Nurses work clinically, in administrative and academic roles and contribute to community and voluntary work, as well as being part of specialist and multidisciplinary teams and are central to patient safety.