Archived: St Johns Wood

13 September 2012. We looked at essential standards covering respecting and involving people, care and welfare, safeguarding people from abuse, cleanliness and infection control as well as complaints.

We looked at the records of three people in detail and where possible spoke with them. We met two patients who were attending appointments and spoke to a further three people over the telephone about their experiences of treatment. A further three people gave us feedback via email.

We asked NHS Devon for their comments because they have a monitoring role in the commissioning of NHS dental care at this practice. The registered provider of St John's Wood dental practice changed in May 2012 and NHS Devon reported that there had been significant improvements to the service since then. Both the provider and NHS Devon told us that there were plans to move the practice to a new location by December 2012, which would improve the environment.

Patients made positive comments about their experience of treatment at the dental practice. For example, one person told us 'All of the staff my children and I have encountered over the years have always been very friendly and helpful. They are particularly nice and put my children at ease prior to treatment and always ask throughout procedures if they are okay'.

Patients told us that the dental practice had discussed treatments with them, and provided an estimate of costs under the NHS banding system about the treatment available to them. However, people felt that verbal communication could be improved so that they better understood the information being discussed with them.

People were safe and we saw that the practice follows strict procedures to protect vulnerable people and in particular when treating children..

In terms of cleanliness people told us that the environment is 'always very clean'. We highlighted an improvement that the provider should consider regarding equipment on one treatment room, which had been picked up by the practice in the infection control audit. Since we inspected the provider informed us that they had taken steps to address this.

People were confident that if they did need to complain, they would be listened to and their concerns dealt with.

We found the provider was compliant with the outcomes we inspected. However, we did highlight areas for improvement with regard to communication and infection control.