10 January 2013
During an inspection looking at part of the service
We assessed the practice against Department of Health 'Health Technical Memorandum 01-05: Decontamination in primary care dental practices" 2008 (HTM 01-05) and saw that there was a risk of cross infection as practices were not in line the essential requirements of the HTM 01-05. The practice did not have a magnifier light to check that equipment was cleaned adequately. Guidelines with regard to single use equipment were not always followed. The decontamination room was carpeted.
We received a provider action plan on 15 March 2012 and visited the service on 10 January 2013 to follow up the compliance actions.
We found the provider had taken action to ensure the service was compliant with the requirements of HTM 01-05. We saw the provider had changed the practices used for decontamination of dental instruments to meet the requirements. All sterilised instruments were now date stamped to ensure they could be indentified as sterile when used. A magnifying glass was present and staff told us now they had single use only reamers (a piece of equipment used in a root canal procedure). We noted the provider had not yet changed the carpet in the decontamination room. He showed us plans for a refurbishment that would be happening in the next three months when this would be changed.
We judged the service was now compliant for this outcome.