What is it like to be inspected under our new style of dental practice inspections?
Habashi Dental Practice is based in the London Borough of Greenwich, and provides both NHS and private dental treatment. We inspected the practice under our new methodology for primary care dental inspections in June 2015. Under this methodology we ask if the service is safe, effective, caring, responsive to people’s needs and well-led.
Find out what happened before, during and after the inspection, and hear how the registered manager at the practice found the experience.
Before the inspection
Our inspector spoke to the registered manager at the Habashi Dental Practice over the phone two weeks before the inspection, and asked them to send us some information (Provider Information Return) before we visited the practice.
We told the NHS England area team and local Healthwatch that we would be inspecting the practice, so they could share any information they felt relevant with us before the inspection.
We also sent comments cards to be displayed in the practice waiting room for the period leading up to the inspection, so that people using the service could share their views and experiences with us.
Dr Amil Patel, registered manager at the Habashi Dental Practice, said:
“We were obviously a bit nervous, but the inspector was very helpful. She explained what the inspection team would be doing on the day, and sent me some guidance to look through so we could prepare for the inspection, and we made sure everything was up to date. Being able to speak to the inspector in advance to ask questions really put us at ease.”
On the day
Our inspector visited the practice with a clinical specialist advisor (who is a dentist) for one day. During the visit we reviewed policy documents, dental care records, and spoke to seven members of the practice team, including clinical and non-clinical staff. We also looked at the storage arrangements for emergency medicines and equipment, and observed dental nurses carrying out decontamination of dental instruments.
We received 50 comments cards from patients and spoke to some patients in the waiting area. The feedback we received from people using the service was positive, and particularly complimentary about the friendly and helpful attitude of staff.
The CQC inspection report commented:
“Patients felt they were listened to and that they received good care from a helpful practice team.”
Dr Amil Patel, registered manager at the Habashi Dental Practice, said:
“There was very little disruption to the service on the day. The inspection team fitted talking to our staff around the practice’s service, so the practice could still run smoothly.”
“Our dental nurse went through our decontamination process with the specialist advisor, I think she found it really helpful to talk about what she does with another professional. What I liked most about the process was that it didn’t feel like they were trying to catch us out, they were honest and it felt like they were genuinely interested in what our strengths were, and how we were doing as a practice.”
“If you are being inspected, make sure you have a room available on the day for the inspector to work in, as this will be needed. I would also recommend that practices ensure their clinical governance is in place, policies are up to date and staff are aware of this. Having the evidence to prove this is in place is also important.”
Once they had finished collecting the evidence they needed and had spoken to everybody at the practice, the inspector gave the practice manager some initial feedback on what they had found including what they were doing well and what they could do to improve.
After the inspection
The inspector then went away to consider their findings in full, and wrote a draft report. The draft report summarised the findings to tell the public whether the service is providing care that is safe, effective, caring, responsive to people’s needs and well-led.
The report then went through a quality assurance process with other inspectors to ensure that the judgments made in the report were fair, and consistent with other reports. We then sent this report to the provider for factual accuracy verification purposes. Once this had been competed, we published the report on our website.
The report concluded that the practice was providing care that was safe, effective, caring, responsive to people’s needs and well-led, in accordance with all of the relevant regulations.
Dr Amil Patel, registered manager at the Habashi Dental Practice, said:
“The feedback we received from the inspection was very positive, which was re-assuring for me and the staff at the practice. We were able to take on-board the recommended areas of improvement as well.”