Updated 27 July 2018
We carried out a focused inspection of Smile Dental Care Pinetrees on 4 July 2018.
The inspection was led by a CQC inspector who was supported by a specialist dental adviser.
We carried out the inspection to follow up concerns we originally identified during a comprehensive inspection at this practice on 20 February 2017 and a focussed inspection on 11 January 2018 under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as part of our regulatory functions.
At a comprehensive inspection we always ask the following five questions to get to the heart of patients’ experiences of care and treatment:
- Is it safe?
- Is it effective?
- Is it caring?
- Is it responsive to people’s needs?
- Is it well-led?
When one or more of the five questions is not met we require the service to make improvements and send us an action plan. We then inspect again after a reasonable interval, focusing on the areas where improvement was required.
At the previous comprehensive inspection on 20 February 2017 we found the registered provider was providing safe, effective, caring and responsive care in accordance with relevant regulations. We judged the practice was not providing well-led care in accordance with regulation 17 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. At the focussed inspection on 11 January 2018 we found the registered provider was providing safe, effective, caring and responsive care in accordance with relevant regulations. We judged the practice was not providing well-led care in accordance with regulation 17 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. You can read our reports of those inspections by selecting the 'all reports' link for Smile Dental Care Pinetrees on our website www.cqc.org.uk.
Our findings were:
Are services well-led?
We found this practice was providing well-led care in accordance with the relevant regulations.
The provider had made improvements to put right the shortfalls and deal with the regulatory breach we found at our inspection on 11 January 2018.
There were areas where the provider could make improvements. They should:
- Review the practice’s infection control procedures and protocols taking into account the guidelines issued by the Department of Health in the Health Technical Memorandum 01-05: Decontamination in primary care dental practices, and having regard to The Health and Social Care Act 2008: ‘Code of Practice about the prevention and control of infections and related guidance’ in particular the adoption of more efficient and effective validation processes for the autoclave and ultrasonic cleaner, marking of sinks to aid staff when using volume related cleaning products, adoption of a written protocol should the autoclave fail, reviewing of check lists used to ensure staff fully understand them, and consideration around the processing of reverse osmosis (RO) water.