Enter and View Report: Fresh Springs Dental Practice.

What is an Enter and View visit?

The Health and Social Care Act 2012 allows local Healthwatch Authorised Representatives to observe service delivery and talk to service users, their families and carers on premises such as hospitals, care homes, GP practices, and pharmacies. We also interview management and staff regarding their views of the service provided. The aim is to get an impartial view of how the service is operated and being experienced.

Enter and View visits can be arranged if people tell us there’s a problem with a service, but equally, they can also occur when services have a good reputation – so we can learn about and share examples of what they do well from the perspective of people who experience the service first hand.

Following the visits, our official ‘Enter and View Report’, will be shared with the service provider, local commissioners and regulators outlining what has worked well, and give recommendations on what could have worked better. All reports are available to view on our website.

Project Background

On 23^rd April 2025, Healthwatch Tower Hamlets visited Fresh Springs Dental Practice, located in Aldgate East, London. The dental practice provides NHS and private dental treatments to patients of all ages.

The rationale for conducting the Enter and View visit to Fresh Springs Dental was based on the data sourced from comments posted online (NHS Reviews and Google Reviews). The dental practice had a high volume of feedback which were mostly positive.

The main aim of the visit was to observe how Fresh Springs Dental Practice operates and how they have acquired positive feedback from their patients. We also wanted to observe the areas of concern that were raised in patient feedback, therefore questions for staff and patients were formulated in a way to address these concerns, alongside the standard Enter & View observations.

Overall, our visit to Fresh Springs Dental Practice was positive with some areas for improvement identified. The dental practice excelled aspects such as accessibility, the quality of the environment, clarity of their signage, information displayed and positive staff-customer interactions.

The following were the recommendations for improvement, to which the dental practice manager has responded to within the full report:

1. Improve Maintenance of Safety Features in the Accessible Toilets 
2. Build a Robust, Well-Promoted Patient Feedback System
3. Display Informative Posters in Both Consultation Rooms
4. Improve the Privacy of Interactions Between Receptionists and Patients at the Joint Reception and Waiting area
5. Increasing the Availability of Appointments Reserved for Children During Term Time

We would like to extend a thank you to Fresh Spring Dental Practice for welcoming Healthwatch Tower Hamlets and contributing to the report.