A recent public health alert in Sydney creates an opportunity for the dental profession to do what it does best: learn, lead, and raise the bar.

On 13 May 2026, NSW Health advised the community that thousands of patients of a Strathfield dental practice to seek testing for bloodborne viruses following a Dental Council of NSW audit that identified serious infection control concerns at the premises.

The patients affected may have been exposed to blood-borne viruses. “People with HIV, hepatitis B, or hepatitis C may not have any symptoms for decades, so people at risk of these infections must be tested, so that they can access treatment as appropriate,” said Dr Leena Gupta, Clinical Director of Public Health at Sydney Local Health District.

Thousands of people are believed to have been seen at the practice over more than 25 years, with no patient records available to contact them directly. NSW Health has noted that while the risk is considered low, testing is recommended as a precaution.

For dental practitioners and practice owners across Australia, it raises an important question. If a patient asked whether they were safe in your practice today, how confident would you be in your answer?

The clinical risk to patients may be low.

The cost to a practice’s reputation is not.

I do not envy dental practitioners. Keeping on top of regulatory requirements, practice management challenges, and clinical advancements is demanding work. It is easy to look at a story like this and distance yourself from it.

But before we do that, let’s pause.

This was a practitioner who worked for 25 years. Who showed up every day. Who, in all likelihood, believed he was doing the right thing by his patients. What the evidence suggests is not malice but drift; a gradual disconnection from an evolving standard, in a practice where nothing ever flagged that something was wrong. For 25 years, nothing happened, so nothing changed.

And then it did.

For the patients, there is the anxiety of not knowing, the disruption of testing, and, in some cases, life-changing health outcomes.

“The poor infection control practices at Dr Tam’s practice means all former patients may be at low risk of a bloodborne virus infection, which can have serious and long-lasting health impacts,” Dr Gupta said.

For the practitioner, the consequences are multifaceted:

• Regulatory action by the Dental Council of NSW or the Dental Board of Australia
• Public health notifications that put the practice name and practitioner in the media
• Patient notification processes that may be impossible to complete if records are incomplete
• Legal liability and the professional and personal costs that come with it
• Reputational damage that, once public, is extraordinarily difficult to walk back
• The psychological weight on every practitioner and team member associated with the practice

Most practitioners reading this are doing good work and honouring their professional responsibility to protect their patients every day. This story is a prompt to make sure the standard is keeping pace with what that looks like in 2026.

Every practitioner should know what is on the Dental Council of NSW’s infection control checklist and what it requires.

The Dental Council have made its inspection checklist available to facilitate transparency of the Council’s assessment and inspection processes.  The Dental Council of NSW’s infection control checklist assumes a high level of knowledge of accepted approaches to managing infection risk in 2026. That level of knowledge is not always where practitioners assume it is.

This is why I wrote this course. To use the checklist as a framework to apply current national standards and guidelines acknowledged by the Dental Board of Australia, so practice teams can feel confident they are looking after their patients and themselves.

Working through the checklist, you will come away with:

• A clear understanding of your obligations as a registered dental practitioner and how to meet them
• Confidence that your personal hygiene and hand hygiene protocols are where they need to be
• Practical guidance on your surgery environment, surface cleaning, storage, and instrument transfer
• Clarity on surgery equipment requirements, including dental unit water lines, suction lines, and sterile procedures
• A sound approach to sharps and waste disposal, including contaminated waste management
• The documentation and record-keeping practices that protect your patients and your practice

With the level of changes and updates to infection control, in my experience, even my high achievers still have some quality improvements to align with best practice in 2026. This checklist is a way to methodically check best practice against the regulator’s expectations to manage infection risk that is applicable right across Australia.

Patient safety is the reason infection control matters.

The regulatory framework exists to support that.

The most motivated practitioners I have worked with are not the ones chasing accreditation or avoiding audits. They are the ones who want their patients to be safe and who understand that infection prevention is a direct expression of the quality of care they provide.

The Dental Council of NSW focuses on safe professional practice, maintaining public safety, and minimising risk. Accreditation against the Primary and Community Healthcare Standards requires a gap analysis against AS 5369:2023. Both of these processes rely on a high level of knowledge of accepted approaches to managing infection risk.

Understanding what good looks like is what separates practices that manage infection risk proactively from those that find themselves reacting under pressure.

The whole team shares in that responsibility. And when the whole team understands why, the standard takes care of itself.

Knowing where your practice stands is the most powerful thing you can do right now.

If this story has prompted a moment of reflection about your own practice’s infection control systems, that is worth acting on.

Over the past decade, I have delivered infection prevention and control training to more than 15,000 dental team members and visited  500+ practices in Australia. The comment I hear most often, regardless of practice size or setting, is some version of the same thing: I just want to make sure we are doing the right thing.

For anyone asking that question right now, my online course, Interpreting the Dental Council of NSW’s Infection Control Checklist, works through every item against current national standards and guidelines. This course exists because I want practice teams to be confident they are doing the right thing, for them and their patients.

Information for patients of the Strathfield practice.

NSW Health has published detailed FAQs and fact sheets on hepatitis B, hepatitis C, and HIV for anyone who was seen at the practice. Former patients with questions can speak to their GP or contact Healthdirect on 1800 022 222.

Anyone distressed by this news can call the Mental Health Line on 1800 011 511, a free 24-hour service staffed by trained mental health professionals. Support in other languages is available via the Transcultural Mental Health Line on 1800 648 911, or through the Translating and Interpreting Service on 131 450.