We spoke with two patients who received treatment at this practice and they told us they were more than satisfied with the care and treatment they received. They told us the dentists explained treatments and gave plenty of good verbal and written information to support what they were doing.

Church Road is one of two locations managed by the same management team and staff work across both locations. We inspected the other location, The Woodlands, on the same day and spoke with another four patients. Comments included: "The staff are marvellous", "The dentists are wonderful" and "I always manage to get an appointment when I need one".

We looked at records and found that they were completed accurately and were secure. We found that health assessments were undertaken and reviewed at each visit. Care and treatment plans were discussed including options, risks and benefits of treatment. Staff were trained in emergency procedures. Emergency equipment was checked and accessible. There were appropriate policies, procedures and risk assessments in place for radiological safety. We found there were sufficient numbers of suitably experienced and qualified staff in order to care for patients safely.

We found the practice was compliant with the essential quality requirements of Health Technical Memorandum 01-05: Decontamination in primary care dental practices (HTM01-05). The HTM 01-05 is designed to assist all registered primary dental care services to meet satisfactory levels of decontamination.

Staff were kept informed of changes to legislation through regular one-to-one discussions and staff meetings and their continuing professional development was monitored to ensure it was kept up to date. This meant that patients were treated by staff who were kept up to date on policies and procedures such as infection control and decontamination.

The practice carried out regular audits to ensure best practice was achieved and acted on information received from patient questionnaires and feedback from external auditors. For example funding had recently been obtained for improvements to the worktops in some of the surgeries. The service offered an 'incentive programme' to staff to increase their responsibilities and included things such as the carrying out of audits or monitoring of equipment on a regular basis.