Harwell Dental Practice follows the protocols of Clinical Governance - the new jargon for quality systems in healthcare. These include:
 

• Radiation safety - Harwell Dental Practice uses the services of the  National Radiological Protection Board (now part of the Health Protection Agency) as Radiation Protection Adviser and the Dental Monitoring Scheme annual radiation safety check.

• Health & Safety - Harwell Dental Practice follows the regulations. Recent developments include an asbestos audit organised by the landlord  (UKAEA) in April 2002 to comply with the Control of Asbestos at Work requirements.

• Disability Discrimination Act - An audit of Harwell Dental Practice was carried out in May 2003 following the guidelines of ‘Access Audits of Primary Healthcare Facilities’  (NHS Estates).

• Education & Training -  Dr Bellew complies with the  General Dental Council requirements for Continuing Professional Development and was also part of their Life Long Learning pilot scheme. He has also been an evaluator for computer assisted learning run by  National Centre for Continuing Professional Education of Dentists . All staff have attended the UKAEA induction and health & safety course, fire extinguisher utilisation and resuscitation training .

• Clinical Audit - Dr Bellew acted as convenor for a collaborative group of dentists in a clinical audit of x-ray quality completed in December 2002. All dentists in the group easily exceeded the quality criteria set down by the  NRPB / HPA .

• Waiting times audit - In September 2003 Harwell Dental Practice undertook a survey of waiting times for patients: this showed that 96% of patients who attended their appointments on time were actually seen on time and 100% of patients who contacted the practice  before 10am regarding a dental emergency were offered an appointment the same day.