A dental practice that did not carry out sterilisation checks and could not prove the identity of one of its nurses has been ordered to improve.

Haringey Dental Practice, in Stroud Green Road, was visited by Care Quality Commission inspectors on June 28 after it failed safety and leadership requirements following a visit in February.

A CQC inspector and a specialist dental advisor reviewed the practice's actions to improve the quality of care and confirm it was now meeting legal requirements.

In their report, published on August 8, they said it had improved its safety, care, effectiveness and responsiveness, but was still not judged to be ‘well led’ and requires improvement.

In its report, the CQC said arrangements to monitor infection prevention and control procedures were "ineffective". 

Checks were not carried out to ensure that all packaged dental instruments had proper sterilization dates, with some lacking dates altogether and others having expired.

Instruments were also found to be unpackaged.

The most recent audit conducted in February 2023 failed to identify these issues.

The CQC also found ineffective arrangements for ensuring appropriate checks were conducted when employing staff.

For example, there were no records available to prove the identity of the trainee dental nurse or to show that Disclosure and Barring Services (DBS) checks were carried out for the role.

Furthermore, the nurse did not have records to show they had completed training in infection prevention and control, safeguarding children and vulnerable adults, Legionella awareness, or fire safety.

This raised concerns about the practice's ability to provide safe and effective care to its patients.

Nor were there staff appraisal arrangements, which meant the practice did not assess and identify the learning and development needs of the trainee dental nurse in relation to their role.

However inspectors found there were arrangements to check equipment used in the cleaning of dental instruments and to assess and mitigate the risk of Legionella.

Inspectors said in their report: "We found this practice was not providing well-led care in accordance with the relevant regulations.

"The provider had made insufficient improvements to put right the shortfalls and had not responded to the regulatory breaches we found at our inspection on February 8, 2023."

The Ham&High tried contacting Haringey Dental Practice and RK Dental, which operates at the same address and under the same telephone number, several times.

A staff member said the new surgery was operating under the same management and that the manager would be in touch.

Despite several calls, there is still no explanation for the name change or comment on failures outlined in the report.

The CQC has also been contacted.