Ethical and Inclusive Health Promotion

Ethical and Inclusive Health Promotion relates to P 3.3. For dental nurses this means supporting patients, colleagues and safe systems while staying within your professional scope.

Health promotion in practice involves more than handing out leaflets. Delivering Better Oral Health and NICE recommend consistent, evidence-informed prevention messages, practical behaviour-change support and routine oral health promotion in dental practice.

What to notice in practice

• Non-judgement: ask what the patient or colleague needs next, then hand over or escalate clearly.
• Culture: ask what the patient or colleague needs next, then hand over or escalate clearly.
• Language: ask what the patient or colleague needs next, then hand over or escalate clearly.
• Cost: signpost to current information and escalate clinical or financial uncertainty.
• Protected characteristics: notice whether the system is helping the patient reach care fairly.

Dental nurses can reinforce preventive messages, make advice understandable, recognise when advice is unrealistic for a patient and report when practice systems impede prevention.

Practical good practice includes preparing for consultations, listening to patients and colleagues, checking understanding, handing over clearly and raising recurring problems for practice learning. These steps turn a framework statement into everyday safer care.

Research and system context

Health promotion delivers health gain when advice is evidence-based, realistic, repeated consistently and accessible to the patient.