Updated 21 December 2020
We undertook a follow up desk-based review of The Lindens Dental Centre on 4 December 2020. This review was carried out to assess in detail the actions taken by the registered provider to improve the quality of care and to confirm that the practice was now meeting legal requirements.
The review was led by a CQC inspector who had remote access to a specialist dental adviser.
We undertook a comprehensive inspection of The Lindens Dental Centre on 16 March 2020 under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as part of our regulatory functions.
We found the registered provider was not providing well led care and was in breach of regulation 17 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014.
You can read our report of that inspection by selecting the 'all reports' link for The Lindens Dental Centre on our website www.cqc.org.uk.
As part of this review we asked:
•Is it well-led?
When one or more of the five questions are not met, we require the service to make improvements and send us an action plan. We then review this information after a reasonable interval, focusing on the area where improvement was required.
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 in relation to the regulatory breach we found at our inspection on 16 March 2020.
Background
The Lindens Dental Centre is in Orpington in the London Borough of Bromley and provides NHS and private dental care and treatment for adults and children.
There is level access to the practice for people who use wheelchairs and those with pushchairs. Car parking spaces are available at the front the practice for those with limited mobility.
The dental team includes 13 dentists, eight dental nurses, two dental hygienists and four receptionists. The clinical team are supported by two practice managers. The practice has five treatment rooms.
The practice is owned by a partnership and as a condition of registration must have a person registered with the CQC as the registered manager. Registered managers 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 registered managers at The Lindens Dental Centre are the two senior partners.
The practice is open:
Monday to Thursday 9.30am to 6pm
Friday 9.30am to 5pm
Saturday 9.30am to 1pm
Our key findings were:
- The provider had made improvements to systems for the management of risks to patients.
- Improvements had been made to ensure all up-to-date documentation relating to staff was available.
- Systems had been implemented and improvements made to the recording of information in the dental care records.
- Systems were in place to monitor the use-by dates of all dental materials.
- There had been improvements to the systems for referring patients.
- Improvements had been made to systems for the safe management of medicines.
- There were improvements to the systems for the monitoring and sharing of safety alerts.
- A review of the fixed wire installation had been carried out in accordance with requirements.