Archived: Parkside Dental Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection on 11 May 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

Parkside Dental Practice has four dentists who work part time, three part time dental hygienists, five qualified dental nurses who are registered with the General Dental Council (GDC), one trainee dental nurse, a practice manager, assistant practice manager, business development manager and two receptionists. The business development manager works between two dental practices and spends some time at each location. The practice’s opening hours are 9am to 6pm on Monday to Thursday and 9am to 5pm on a Friday and the practice was closed between 1pm to 2pm each day during lunch time. The practice opened at 8am on a Monday and Tuesday and from 9am to 1pm every other Saturday for orthodontic patients only. This helped to ensure that those patients with work commitments were still able to receive an appointment.

Parkside Dental Practice provides NHS orthodontic treatment and private general dental treatment for adults and children. The practice has five dental treatment rooms; two of which are on the ground floor. There is a separate decontamination room for cleaning, sterilising and packing dental instruments on the first floor which serves the treatment rooms on this floor. Sterilisation of dental equipment used on the ground floor is completed within the treatment room. There is also a reception desk and departure desk and two waiting areas; one on each floor of the practice.

The practice manager has applied to become 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. The practice manager was in attendance at this inspection.

Before the inspection we sent Care Quality Commission comments cards to the practice for patients to complete to tell us about their experience of the practice and during the inspection we spoke with patients. We received feedback from four patients who provided an overwhelmingly positive view of the services the practice provides. All of the patients commented that the quality of care was very good.

Our key findings were

• Systems were in place for the recording and learning from significant events and accidents.
• There were sufficient numbers of suitably qualified staff to meet the needs of patients.
• Patients were treated with dignity and respect.
• The practice was visibly clean and well maintained.
• Infection control procedures were in place with infection prevention and control audits being undertaken on a six monthly basis. Staff had access to personal protective equipment such as gloves and aprons.
• There was appropriate equipment for staff to undertake their duties, and equipment was well maintained.
• The provider had emergency medicines in line with the British National Formulary (BNF) guidance for medical emergencies in dental practice.
• Staff had been trained to deal with medical emergencies.
• The appointment system met the needs of patients and waiting times were kept to a minimum.
• The practice was well-led and staff felt involved and worked as a team.
• Governance arrangements were in place for the smooth running of the practice and there was a structured plan in place to audit quality and safety.

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

• Review the fire safety checklist and ensure that checks are completed in line with the frequency required on the checklist.
• Review the systems for recording batch numbers and expiry dates of local anaesthetics used.
• Review the practice’s protocols for recording in the patients’ dental care records or elsewhere the reason for taking the X-ray giving due regard to the Ionising Radiation (Medical Exposure) Regulations (IR(ME)R) 2000.