How do we care for our teeth? We brush our teeth, twice a day. (Sometimes even more after having a spicy curry) Use mouth fresheners and visit a dentist at least once in a year.
Why should it be different for our residents? Dementia is not a reason for not visiting the dentist or not having good oral hygiene. Now we should be there to help them to meet this need and improve oral care in care homes.
Let me tell you a secret – when I was a Manager, I used to go around and check if the resident’s toothbrushes were wet around midmorning. The staff did a good job, but as a Manager, I was supposed to do that anyway.
CQC will be releasing guidance on the importance of oral care in the coming months and how they will be monitoring during the inspection. This is going to be a hot topic after they release guidance.
I am reiterating this because I see a pattern of not seeing any evidence for oral care during my mock inspections in care homes.
So what should you do? Hey, by the way, if you are doing this already – well done.
- Do an oral care risk assessment for all your residents. you can download this from NICE website.
- Have a care plan domain specifically for Oral care for all your residents or include oral care details in ‘Personal Care” domain – It is a MUST.
- The details should include how often the residents should have their teeth cleaned, what material should be used, denture care, details about visiting the dentist and what support the resident needs.
- Check if all your residents have a toothbrush, toothpaste and denture tablets as needed to meet their need.
- You may want one of your staff to take pride in becoming an Oral Care champion who monitors the implementation of this process.
- Regardless of having a champion in place – Manager should still monitor the effectiveness of the initiative at least once in a week.
CQC usually checks on this, if they have picked up something that concerns people’s personal hygiene not being met.
You definitely want to get the basics right even before you provide evidence for an outstanding rating.
Best wishes,
Issac Theophilos
Author: How to get outstanding. An ultimate guide for care homes.
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