Archived: Village Dental Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection on 23 February 2016 to ask the practice the following key questions; Are services safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led?

Our findings were:

Are services safe?

We found that this practice was providing safe care in accordance with the relevant regulations.

Are services effective?

We found that this practice was providing effective care in accordance with the relevant regulations.

Are services caring?

We found that this practice was providing caring services in accordance with the relevant regulations.

Are services responsive?

We found that this practice was providing responsive care in accordance with the relevant regulations.

Are services well-led?

We found that this practice was providing well-led care in accordance with the relevant regulations.

Background

Village Dental Practice is a general dental practice situated in the centre of Stevenage. It provides NHS and private treatment to adults and children.

The practice is situated on the ground floor within a parade of shops in a pedestrianised zone of the town centre. It has three treatment rooms, a staff room, dedicated decontamination area and waiting room.

The principal dentist is the registered manager. A registered manager is a person who is registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Like registered providers, they are ‘registered persons’. Registered persons have legal responsibility for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and associated Regulations about how the practice is run.

We received feedback on the service from 26 patients, either by way of them completing a Care Quality Commission comment card or in person. They were all positive about the service offered, and made particular reference to how pleasant and cheery the staff were, the friendliness of the whole team, and how they were made to feel at ease.

Our key findings were:

• The provider had emergency medicines in line with the British National Formulary (BNF) guidance for medical emergencies in dental practice, with the exception of a medicine to treat seizures which has since been acquired.

• Patients who used the service described how staff were always polite and helpful and nervous patients said they were comfortable to attend this practice.

• Staff demonstrated a good knowledge of how to raise a safeguarding concern, and the situation in which that may be required.

• Comprehensive pre-employment checks had been carried out on all new staff to ensure the practice was employing fit and proper persons.

• The practice used a comprehensive template to note the screening of oral tissues that dentists carried out to identify disease.

• Dental care records were found to be accurate and detailed.

• The practice used clinical audit as a tool to ensure continual improvement of the service, although an infection control audit was found to be overdue for completion.

• The practice used a system of safer sharps to reduce the risk of sharps injury to staff members.

There were areas where the provider could make improvements and should:

• Review availability of medicines and equipment to manage medical emergencies giving due regard to guidelines issued by the Resuscitation Council (UK), the General Dental Council (GDC) standards for the dental team and the British National Formulary.

• Review the practice’s infection control procedures, protocols and frequency of clinical audit giving due regard to guidelines issued by the Department of Health - Health Technical Memorandum 01-05: Decontamination in primary care dental practices and The Health and Social Care Act 2008: ‘Code of Practice about the prevention and control of infections and related guidance.

• Review the recommendations made following the testing of the X-ray machines to reduce the effective dose of radiation to patients.