The 3 King Street Dental Centre

We carried out this announced focused inspection on 27 January 2021 under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. We planned the inspection to check whether the registered provider was meeting the legal requirements in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and associated regulations. The inspection was led by a Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspector who was supported by a specialist dental adviser.

As part of this inspection we asked:

• Is it safe?

• Is it well-led?

These questions form the framework for the areas we look at during the inspection.

Our findings were:

Are services safe?

We found that this practice was providing safe 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

The 3 King Street Dental Centre is in Kings Lynn, Norfolk and provides private general dental treatment to adults and children.

The practice is located on the ground floor of a listed building in the town centre. The practice has one treatment room and a separate decontamination room. Car parking spaces, including dedicated parking for people with disabilities, are available in public car parks close to the practice.

The team includes the provider who is the principal dentist, and qualified dental nurse who also works on reception.

The practice is owned by an individual who is the principal dentist there. They have legal responsibility for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and associated regulations about how the practice is run.

During the inspection we spoke with the provider and dental nurse, and spoke to one patient. We looked at practice policies and procedures and other records about how the service is managed.

The practice is open:

Monday to Friday from 9am to 5pm.

Our key findings were:

• The practice appeared clean and well maintained. The provider had a policy in place which outlined the actions taken to protect staff and the public from the spread of Covid-19.
• The provider had infection control procedures which reflected published guidance. There was scope to add further detail to the infection control audits that were undertaken.
• Staff knew how to deal with emergencies. Appropriate medicines and life-saving equipment were available. We noted that the provider’s basic life support training had been cancelled due to the national lockdown in 2020. We discussed this with the provider and were given assurance that the training would be undertaken using an online training platform.
• The provider had systems to help them manage risk to patients and staff.
• The provider had suitable safeguarding processes and staff knew their responsibilities for safeguarding vulnerable adults and children.
• The provider had not recruited any further members of staff since opening the practice, and had not used agency staff. The provider had an understanding of what would be required if this was to change.
• The provider asked staff and patients for feedback about the services they provided. Patients felt the provider gave an ‘excellent’ service, and many patients had been registered with the practice from it’s opening. The provider carried out annual audits of patient retention rates.
• The provider had suitable information governance arrangements.

There were areas where the provider could make improvements. They should:

• Implement an effective system for receiving and responding to patient safety alerts, recalls and rapid response reports issued by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, the Central Alerting System and other relevant bodies, such as Public Health England.
• Take action to ensure staff have received training to manage medical emergencies taking into account the guidelines issued by the Resuscitation Council (UK) and the General Dental Council.
• Take action to ensure audits of radiography and infection prevention and control are undertaken at regular intervals to improve the quality of the service.