How Will The Care Quality Commission Monitor Compliance of Dental Care Providers
From April 2011 it will be necessary for all providers of dental care services to be registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC). However, once these service providers have proved that they are meeting the CQC's essential standards and that they have achieved their registration, the focus for the CQC then shifts, to ensuring that standards are maintained post registration. Any dental services that are found to be falling below the required standards will initially be supported by the CQC to improve the situation. However, if the situation fails to improve then the CQC will act to ensure the safety of service users, this could mean the dental practice being forced to cease functioning.
There are several methods that the Care Quality Commission will use to monitor ongoing compliance. The first of these is through the use of a quality and risk profile (QRP) which the CQC will hold for each provider. The information contained within this profile will include a number of items from a number of sources, as described below:
Notifications
Any notifications of deaths or allegations of abuse, or changes to management structures etc will be held within an organisation's QRP. Organisations with a high level of notifications in relation to issues such as these will clearly hold greater risk in terms of ensuring compliance with the essential standards.
Provider Compliance Assessment
The quality and risk profile may also contain information provided by the dental service in the form of a 'provider compliance assessment'. This assessment can be carried out internally using the CQC's own template and allows for an organisation to monitor themselves as well as giving them a robust way of being able to submit evidence of compliance to the CQC.
Other Agencies
Furthermore the CQC are in the process of drawing up information-sharing agreements with other organisations such that they will be able to obtain information about your dental care service to assess and inspect your activity. An example of this could be the CQC utilising data provided by NHS Dental Services.
Service Users
The final information stream that feeds into the QRP is feedback from service users, patients, members of the public and local focus groups or local involvement networks (LINkS).
Your QRP will be reviewed regularly and if any new issues or concerns arise, then these will be addressed in line with the Commission's judgement framework, so that problems or poor standards are picked up and rectified as soon as possible.
In addition to reviewing the quality and risk profiles as new information is added to them, the CQC will also review dental services compliance against the essential standards once every two years, although the exact frequency of these assessments will depend entirely on the size of the organisation, the type of service provided and the amount of information that is routinely fed into the QRP.
It is important therefore to think of the CQC registration process as just the start of an ongoing project to maintain and where possible raise standards such that your dental care service is delivering the highest quality, safe care to its patients and that it is being managed effectively.
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