Burpham Dental Care is a dental practice providing NHS and private treatment for both adults and children. The practice is based in a converted residential premises in Guildford, a town situated in Surrey. The practice has an arrangement whereby the two practice owners each have an individual NHS contract with two dentists working under each contract holder. The governance arrangements for the practice consisted of several individual responsibilities and other areas where there is joint responsibility for governance systems, processes and protocols.

The practice has four dental treatment rooms, two on the ground floor and two on the first floor. Each of the practice owners has two treatment rooms, one on each floor. This enables each contract holder to offer treatment on the ground floor for those patients with limited mobility or who cannot manage the stairs to the first-floor treatment rooms. Decontamination of dental instruments is carried out in each treatment room.

This practice owner employs two dentists, one registered dental nurse, a trainee dental nurse, two shared receptionists and a part-time practice manager.

The practice’s opening hours are 8am to 5.30pm from Monday to Friday.

There are arrangements in place to ensure patients receive urgent medical assistance when the practice is closed. This is provided by an out-of-hours service.

The practice owner is the registered manager. A registered manager is a person who is registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) to manage the service. Like registered providers, they are ‘registered persons’. Registered persons have legal responsibility for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and associated Regulations about how the practice is run.

Before the inspection we sent Care Quality Commission (CQC) comments cards to the practice for patients to complete to tell us about their experience of the practice. We collected 20 completed cards. All the comments from patients were positive about the care they received from the practice.

Our key findings were:

• We found that the practice ethos was to provide patient centred dental care in a relaxed and friendly environment.

• Leadership was provided by the practice owner and an empowered practice manager.

• Staff had been trained to handle emergencies and appropriate medicines and life-saving equipment was readily available in accordance with current guidelines.

• The practice appeared clean and well maintained.

• There was appropriate equipment for staff to undertake their duties, and equipment was well maintained.

• Infection control procedures followed published guidance.

• The practice owner acted as the safeguarding lead with effective processes in place for safeguarding adults and children living in vulnerable circumstances.

• There was a process in place for the reporting and shared learning when untoward incidents occurred in the practice.

• Dentists provided dental care in accordance with current professional and National Institute for Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines.

• The service was aware of the needs of the local population and took these into account in how the practice was run.

• Patients could access treatment and urgent and emergency care when required.

• Staff received training appropriate to their roles and were supported in their continued professional development (CPD) by the practice owner.

• Staff we spoke with felt well supported by the practice owner and were committed to providing a quality service to their patients.

• Information from 20 completed Care Quality Commission (CQC) comment cards gave us a positive picture of a friendly, caring, professional and high quality service.

There were areas where the provider could make improvements and should:

• Consider providing an annual statement in relation to infection prevention control required under The Health and Social Care Act 2008: ‘Code of Practice about the prevention and control of infections and related guidance.
• Review the availability of hearing loops for patients who are hard of hearing.

As part of our inspection we spoke with two people who used the service. Both people told us they thought the service was very good. They told us the staff were always polite and respectful and appeared to be well trained. They told us they received lots of information about the options available to them and that the dentists always talked about the treatment they were providing.

They also told us they found the service to be clean and tidy and that they always felt safe.