My colleague worries me – what should I do?

A dental nurse was becoming increasingly concerned about the conduct of one her dental nurse colleagues. Not only was that colleague becoming irritable and unfriendly, which she had not been before, but she was also making errors, particularly regarding the completion of records and general maintenance of the surgery. This was worrying as her work had previously been of a high standard. The dental nurse felt she had to do something to prevent problems occurring. The situation was not yet apparent to the dentists in the practice and no patient had suffered any harm. The nurse initially asked her colleague if she had any problems that were causing these difficulties. She replied that there was nothing wrong and that the nurse should ‘mind her own business’. The difficulties however continued and the dental nurse was unsure what to do. So, what was the best way forward here? The following steps can be of help: