How to ensure a team of high flyers

Previous articles in this series explored the differences between management and various styles of leadership, succession planning, the use of mentorship within leadership and some practical ideas on dealing with and managing stress as a leader. This article examines the role the clinically based dental nurse has in staff training.

For the senior dental nurse, there are three important areas of training encompassed in their leadership role; assessment of staff needs, allocation of training resources and implementation of local training initiatives.

Take a few moments to think about the type of clinical dental practice you work in and the associated training needs of your practice. Firstly, there will be the standard mandatory training required of all staff - moving and handling, safeguarding, fire evacuation, Mental Capacity Act, and any others specific to your area of work. Then there are the core training needs associated specifically with dental nursing such as; infection control, storage of medicines and equipment, practice based investigations, first aid and others relevant to your clinical practice. Thirdly are the advanced dental nursing skills required to work in your speciality such as patient education, orthodontic dental nursing and others relevant to your speciality. A training needs assessment needs to be undertaken for each member of staff in relation to the role and responsibilities they undertake. This should then be developed specifically for each individual, including yourself. There will be some mandatory and core skills such as safeguarding which are organised by an outside body or NHS training department, other training needs are those development skills that are specific to your clinical area and can be delivered by your staff in an informal or semi-structured ways. At the other end of the training continuum are the college and university-based courses such as dental implant nursing, leadership and management, orthodontic nursing and health care degrees.