Community Dental Services CIC Head Office

Updated 2 September 2021

HMP/YOI Norwich is a complex local prison, located in central Norwich and serving East Anglia. Comprising three adjacent but separate sites, the establishment includes: the local reception prison site, holding convicted and remand category B and category C prisoners; the local discharge unit (LDU), a training facility holding category C prisoners; and an open resettlement facility, Britannia House, holding category D prisoners. While this level of complexity brings with it considerable management challenges, this combination of facilities offer potential opportunities to help prisoners progress through their sentence to the point of resettlement into the local community. The prison is operated by Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service.

Community Dental Services CIC are commissioned to provide a range of NHS treatments including dental therapy to promote good oral health. The provider is registered with the CQC to provide the following regulated activities at the location: Treatment of disease, disorder or injury, Diagnostic and screening procedures, and Surgical Procedures.

As a condition of registration, the provider must have a person registered with the Care Quality Commission as the registered manager. Registered managers have legal responsibility for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and associated regulations about how the practice is run. The registered manager at HMP Norwich is the practice manager.

Our last joint inspection with HMIP was in October 2019. The joint inspection report can be found at: https://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmiprisons/inspections/hmp-yoi-norwich/

Updated 2 September 2021

We carried out an announced focused inspection of healthcare services provided by Community Dental Services CIC at HMP Norwich on 26 and 27 July 2021.

Following our last joint inspection with Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons (HMIP) in October 2019, we found that the quality of healthcare provided by Community Dental Services CIC at this location required improvement. We issued a Requirement Notice in relation to Regulation 12, Safe care and treatment and Regulation 17, Good governance, of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014.

The purpose of this focused inspection was to determine if the healthcare services carried out by the provider were meeting the legal requirements of the Requirement Notices that we issued in February 2020 and to find out if patients were receiving safe care and treatment. At this inspection we found that improvements had been made and the provider was not found to be in breach of the regulations.

We do not currently rate services provided in prisons.

At this inspection we found:

• Both dental clinics were clean, tidy and dust free.
• Staff followed the standard operating procedures for decontamination processes and the effectiveness of the equipment was appropriately checked.
• All equipment had been serviced and maintenance logs were complete.
• Staff carried out comprehensive dental tool checks.
• Managers carried out audits to help ensure staff were carrying out the decontamination process and had good aseptic techniques.
• Staff recorded and maintained weekly logs for all clinic decontamination processes, cleaning and checking of equipment.
• Managers had carried out a decontamination audit which resulted in 100% compliance.