Archived: Finchley Dental Practice

We had seen that some emergency equipment was out of date or stored incorrectly, that infection control audits were not available and decontamination records incomplete.

We also found that the provider did not have systems in place for monitoring, recording and evaluating the quality of the care provided to people who used the service.

Following our inspection in January, the provider sent us a plan of the actions intended to meet the requirements of Regulations 9, 10 and 12 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2010. We carried out this visit to check that the actions in that plan had been implemented.

We found that the provider had taken appropriate action and was now compliant with the regulations.

We reviewed the dental records of patients who had seen the dentist and dental hygienist. We saw medical histories were completed and updated regularly. Patients who we spoke with confirmed this. One patient said, 'the dentist always checks on my physical health before he starts any treatment.'

The seven patients we spoke with all said the dental surgery was always clean and they saw the dentist and dental nurse washed their hands. However we saw the provider was unable to show us any infection control audits had been complied for the practice.

We reviewed the dentist, one dental hygienist and two dental nurse training records. We saw that staff were up-to-date with medical emergency cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and safeguarding.

We were unable to review any audits that had been completed by the provider, we saw the provider did ask people to comment on the quality of the service but this was not collated nor fedback to the patients. This could mean the provider did not have systems in place for gathering, recording and evaluating the quality of the care provided.