During our visit to Broadsmile Dental Clinic we met with the provider, Dr Amin Voghoui. We also spoke with the dental nurse. We looked at five patient’s records. We did not speak with patients because we were focusing on areas that had been identified as requiring improvement at our last visit.

At our last visit on 11 February 2013 we identified that the provider needed to take action in a number of areas. These were; to ensure the safety of patients; to improve infection control processes; to ensure staff received appropriate training and supervision and to improve the detail contained within patient’s records.

During our visit on 11 November 2013 we found that the provider had taken action in all areas. We saw that patient’s medical histories were checked at each appointment. We saw that patient’s records contained detailed information regarding the dentist’s examination, diagnosis and treatment options. We found that care and treatment was planned in a way that was intended to ensure patient’s safety.

We saw that the provider had taken action to protect patients from the risk of infection. The provider operated processes, and followed procedures that minimised the risk and spread of infection, current guidelines had been followed.

We saw that the dental nurse had received an appraisal and had identified training and development objectives. We looked at records that confirmed training had been undertaken in medical emergencies and infection control.

We spoke to only one patient but she told us that all her family had been coming for many years and now her grandchildren were attending the practice. She always found the dentist helpful and thorough in explaining her treatment.

We found that although some essential training had been carried out other key areas of training were out of date for example CPR and cross infection control training.

We also found that some audits were out of date or had not been completed.

We found that although the records were being kept securely they were not always a complete record of the patients history and examination.

We observed that the dentist and nurse were knowledgeable in the national decontamination guidelines HTM01-05 but not all checks were being documented and there had been no cross infection control audit. There was a lack of knowledge in the national cleaning guidelines.