The provider sent us an action plan to show how they would address the issues by 10 September 2013. In August 2014 we asked the provider to send us evidence to demonstrate they were meeting the regulation. We found the provider had taken appropriate action to meet the requirements of current guidance to reduce the risk of infection.
People told us they received a very good dental service. Comments from people included the following: 'He's a very good dentist,' and, 'The dentist and dental nurse interact with you brilliantly. The attention to detail is very good.'
We used our SOFI (Short Observational Framework for Inspection) tool to help us see what people's experiences were when they received treatment. The SOFI tool allows us to spend time watching what is going on in a service and helps us to record how people receive treatment. We observed one person's treatment and dental checks. The dentist took time to explain to the person what he was doing and the future treatment needed.
We noted that for the duration of the dental treatment the surgery door was kept open for the whole day which compromised the privacy of people.
We saw records were made of the treatment people had and that people signed to agree to future treatment plans.
We found the surgery was clean and that there was a separate room for decontamination of dental equipment. The process of cleaning and sterilising equipment was flawed as checks were not made of the temperature equipment was sterilised due to the autoclave not working properly. There were no audits of infection control or cleaning schedules.