Rachel Hughes is a dental nurse with nearly 18 years of experience in the industry. She, like many other nurses, has a passion for training and development of other dental professionals. She successfully balances working as an extended duties dental nurse with being a dental trainer and a tutor for NEBDN National diploma.

Due to the recent charity walk to raise awareness of Oral Cancer, I thought I would write about a couple of my TCO experiences of when we have come across mouth cancer. Recently, some people I know took part in the 10km walk in Hyde Park; they managed to raise almost £400 over their target amount!

For two years we'd all been on tenter hooks, waiting for that phone call - you know the one that announced the imminent arrival of our CQC inspector!

When it finally came, we actually had quite a bit of notice. They wanted to come within the next three weeks and they would be looking at the following outcomes:

A Treatment Co-ordinator (TCO) can hugely benefit practices for many reasons, especially when it comes to phobic patients. The patient’s first visit to the practice does not need to be in a surgery, and in some cases, does not need to be an examination for their first appointment. 

The ban on dentists with HIV practising dentistry is to be lifted from April 2014, announced the government on August 15th. 

This move by the government, to bring the UK in line with most of its western peers, has been welcomed by professionals throughout the dental industry.