Visits to dental practices in the St Albans and Harpenden District
Our reports are public documents and we share them with the commissioners, regulators and providers of the service we are visiting.
During 2017 to 2019 we ran a project to look at access to dental services focussing on the environment, physical access, information access, equality and diversity and complaints handling.
St Albans and Harpenden district is our second district to have randomly selected Enter and View visits of 25% of the dental practices holding an NHS contract.
What we found
Generally, areas for improvement seemed to be similar to the Welwyn and Hatfield district.
We made recommendations for improvement in each of the dental practices we visited.
What changed as a result of our visits
- NHS England (Dental) are adding our reports to their dashboard to identify trends and area for improvement.
- Hertfordshire Local Dental Committee invited us to present our findings at their quarterly meeting.
- A number of dental practices updated their complaints policies in line with the recommendations of the Regulation of Dental Services Programme Board.
- Introduction of a process to update the NHS Choices website entry and to provide clarity on the practice website for NHS patients as well as private patients.
- Healthwatch Hertfordshire recommendations on accessibility taken into account for refurbishment programmes in some dental practices.
Visit Reports
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