We carried out a comprehensive inspection of Brighton Villa Dental Care on 16 January 2015.

The practice provides NHS dental treatment and private dental treatment. It is part of a national dental payment plan scheme. The practice is situated in a converted former residential property in Hereford city centre. The practice has three dental treatment rooms and a decontamination room for the cleaning, sterilising and packing of dental instruments. The reception area and waiting room are on the ground floor.

Brighton Villa has five dentists (two of whom are the partners who own the practice), a dental hygienist and six dental nurses (one of whom was a trainee). The practice manager and clinical team are supported by an office manager and a receptionist.

Before the inspection we sent Care Quality Commission comment cards to the practice for patients to use to tell us about their experience of the practice. We collected six completed cards. These provided a positive view of the service the practice provides. Patients told us the practice was welcoming and described the staff team as caring, charming and always willing to listen. There were positive comments about the cleanliness of the practice. Some patients specifically commented on being involved in decisions about treatment and the professionalism of the team.

Our key findings were:

• Staff reported incidents and kept records of these which the practice used for shared learning.
• The practice was visibly clean and well maintained.
• Patients’ needs were assessed and care was planned and delivered in line with current best practice guidance from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) and other published guidance.
• The practice had effective safeguarding processes and staff understood their responsibilities for safeguarding adults and children living in vulnerable circumstances.
• Staff had received training appropriate to their roles and were supported in their continued professional development (CPD).
• The practice took into account any comments, concerns or complaints and used these to help them improve the practice.
• Patients were pleased with the care and treatment they received and complimentary about the dentists and all other members of the practice team.

We spoke with four patients during the inspection and to two more by telephone afterwards. People we spoke with were positive about the service they received at the practice. People told us they liked the dentists and described their care as, “brilliant”. Everyone commented on the commitment the new owners had shown to the practice. One person described the dentist they saw as, “the tops”.

People told us that their dentists always explained their treatment to them clearly. Two people allowed us to observe while they had their routine check-ups. We saw that these were done thoroughly. People we spoke with confirmed that that they found the dentists to be careful and competent.

There was medication and oxygen available for certain medical emergencies and staff were trained to know what to do if a person became unwell at the practice.

The practice was clean and people we spoke with told us they thought standards of cleanliness were very good there. Most people commented on not only the standards of hygiene but also the recent improvements to the decoration at the practice. There were suitable arrangements for the cleaning, sterilising and storing of instruments. Staff described these procedures to us confidently.

The dental team were qualified and maintained their continuous professional development (CPD) as required by the General Dental Council (GDC). The practice manager monitored this and showed us the records they kept of this.

The practice had arrangements for monitoring the quality of the service and for assessing and reducing any risks to people using the service, or staff.