The SAAD National course provides the underpinning knowledge and an introduction to the clinical skills required for providing safe conscious sedation but it is also necessary to undergo supervised clinical experience before embarking on independent practice.
The IACSD ‘Standards for Conscious Sedation in the Provision of Dental Care’ (April 2015) state that practitioners offering supervised clinical experience for ‘new starter’ sedationists must be accredited by a university, deanery or IACSD (p34, 86).
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TRAINING WITH SAAD
SAAD has introduced schemes to facilitate to acquisition of 'supervised clinical experience' for both dentists and dental nurses. For further information please see SAAD Assessed Sedationist scheme or SAAD Assessed Sedation Nurse scheme.
The SAAD training schemes are outlined in an article that can be downloaded here. The deadline to register for the SAS scheme is a week BEFORE attending the SAAD National Course.
In addition to being supervised, those who are learning sedation must be appropriately assisted to comply with the guidance. It is possible for an experienced SAAD Assessed Sedation Supervisor to mentor the team. In such cases separate logbooks and DOPs must be completed for all members of the team.
Whist the ideal would be for all “new starters” to have a dedicated Assessed Sedation Supervisor, it is appreciated that this is sometimes impractical.
An acceptable compromise would be that a very experienced operator/sedationist may be able to take on the additional responsibility of supervising a dental nurse completing his/her supervised clinical experience. In such cases the patients should be simple cases, where both the sedation and the dentistry are comfortably within the dentist’s competence. Those who have only recently completed training should not assume this extra responsibility.
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ALTERNATIVE TRAINING ROUTE
The STAC application form for supervisor approval is available on the IACSD page of the FDSRCS Eng website: https://www.rcseng.ac.uk/dental-faculties/fds/publications-guidelines/standards-for-conscious-sedation-in-the-provision-of-dental-care-and-accreditation/application-for-supervisor-approval/
Applicants need to show how the person/s they intend to supervise:
1) will have gained appropriate knowledge and skills training (IACSD Appendix 1). This might be provided in-house or by attending an appropriate course e.g. the SAAD National Course.
AND
2) will be supervised by an appropriately trained and experienced sedationist for the required number of cases (IACSD Table 1). All supervised sedation experience must be recorded in an appropriate log book (e.g. available from the DSTG website).
Once submitted, the application form will be assessed by the Sedation Training Accreditation Committee (STAC). The process usually takes less than one month. If approved, the supervisor becomes ‘STAC approved’ and is then able to supervise trainees. Until the required number of supervised cases have been completed the trainee (dentist, doctor, dental hygienist/therapist or dental nurse) is unable to provide sedation independently.
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