CQC compliance guide for dental practices | How should I prepare?
Every dental practice, like most clinical practices up and down the country, need to pass their CQC inspection. The CQC, known in full as the Care Quality Commission, works to ensure that all providers of healthcare are doing so to a high standard and are not endangering their clients or patients.
We know that even for small practices, getting all the documentation in place for passing this important and broad inspection is stressful, so here we provide some helpful information and a list of the CQC’s expectations and assessment criteria.
Contents
What is the CQC?
The CQC is the acronym for the Care Quality Commission. Under the Health and Social Care Act 2008, the CQC monitors the standards of dental practices that are both private and run out of the NHS, or are part of a voluntary organisation. They have the power to close down a dental practice if they don’t meet their standards.
What are they looking for in a CQC dental inspection?
When the CQC monitors the services of any healthcare provider, there are a five questions that they use to make an assessment of the practice’s operations:
Is the service safe?
Is it effective?
Is it caring?
Is it responsive?
Is it well-led?
Each of the five questions has a means of being evaluated with ‘key lines of enquiry’, or KLOEs. These KLOEs mean that inspectors have a consistent and fair way of making an assessment. For instance, when an inspector is questioning, ‘Is it safe?’, a KLOE will be requesting and examining stats on the practice’s accident records. To assess if something is responsive, they might look at responses on a survey about the practice’s care. Many of these KLOEs will be outlined in our CQC dental inspection checklist.
How often does the CQC inspect dental practices?
The CQC has decided that primary dental practices pose less risk to the public and therefore the frequency with which they inspect dental practices compared to other sectors like GP surgeries is less. Annually, they will review 10% of their registered practices, which will either have been selected randomly or because reports have alluded to a drop in their care.
All dental practices are monitored through a range of channels, such as information from people who use the services, regulators and local organisations.
They use two kinds of inspections: a comprehensive and a focused inspection. Unsurprisingly, a comprehensive inspection will involve examining all five CQC questions and they’re really only used for a service that has not yet been accredited by the CQC, or has not been inspected for a long time.
Focused inspections tend to occur when reports have alerted the CQC to a particular issue with a CQC dentist’s practice, or when following up on a concern that came up in a comprehensive inspection. It’s also worth noting that a focused inspection can sometimes be unannounced.
How much time do I have to prepare for an inspection?
The CQC gives dental practices two weeks of notice before they arrive. They will request documentation before their arrival. This includes:
An up-to-date statement of purpose.
Information about membership of any accreditation/good practice scheme.
Details of staff numbers and the hours they work.
A breakdown of the complaints the practice has received, and their corresponding actions or improvements.
Much of the documentation both above and in the checklist below will need to be mostly prepared before the CQC announces their inspection, which is to say that the two weeks of notice are really for any final touches to documentation.
What will the CQC look for?
There is a key range of evidence that the CQC inspector will ask for, so we’ve come up with a CQC dental inspection checklist for you to work through:
External
Is the exterior clean?
Is there wheelchair access?
Are the hours and emergency details visible from outside?
Waiting area
Is there a suitable answerphone system?
Does the waiting room have sufficient seating and is it clean?
Is there adequate record storage and is it secure?
Are the toilets clean and are the sinks and hand dryers in good condition?
Surgeries
Are there daily checklists?
Is there a sufficient number of tools? For instance, are there enough mouth mirrors, probes and excavators?
Are all instruments steralised in line with the guidance and are they stored properly after decontamination?
Are sinks in the right place and accompanied by hand hygiene posters?
Is there a documented routine for the cleaning of surgical and waiting areas?
Have disposable instruments been disposed of correctly?
Staff
Have staff been trained on the relevant machines and instruments?
Are their hours agreed upon and documented?
Do staff understand their safeguarding responsibilities? For instance, making staff aware of child protection information.
Are staff aware of the relevant protocols for storage of samples and medicines?
Are staff educated on infection control?
Is there evidence of ongoing training and upskilling as technologies develop?
Is there a whistleblowing policy for staff to alert relevant authorities of unhealthy or dangerous workplace practices?
Have the staff been DBS checked?
Is there a robust recruitment process and does it include an equal opportunities policy?
Health and Safety
Is there a published health and safety policy that is both signed and dated?
Have risk assessments been taken for the below?
Slips, trips and falls
Electricity at work
Pressure vessels
Fire
Legionella (by relevant expert)
Re-sheathing of needles
Is there a fire drill protocol that staff are familiar with?
Are drugs stored securely?
Is there policy for staff to react to violence and aggression?
Is there fire equipment/CPR and have a sufficient number of staff been trained to use it?
What happens after the CQC inspection?
After the inspection, a public report is published. In the report, there is a judgment on each CQC question that was assessed and whether regulations are being met. Areas for improvement are made clear, as is the action that needs to be taken. Sometimes the details of reports are sent to local media, typically when a practice is deemed either outstanding, or it’s inadequate and enforcement is being undertaken.
How can I make the process easier?
Printing out a CQC dental inspection checklist and working through it is a good place to start. Doing a dry run could also be incredibly helpful, especially if your practice is gaining its first CQC accreditation. You can spontaneously check for cleanliness, hygiene and correct storage of medicines and tools. You could even interview staff and check how well-versed they are in safeguarding issues, and how proficient they are in maintaining workstations and hygiene.
Of course, lots of documentation and audits will still need to be prepped. That’s where Crysp can come in handy. Crysp can provide you with the relevant templates for audits, assessments and protocols - all of which can be stored on an all-in-one platform that gives you an overview of your audit cycles. You can access the relevant documentation efficiently, and so can everyone else in your team who needs to read up on the practice’s protocols.
Crysp also offers a consultancy service in addition to our platform, where we’ll match you up with an expert who can offer advice on healthcare and has helped other CQC dentists to pass their inspections with flying colours. Get in contact with our team, and see if our services could work for you!
Curious about how other healthcare providers prep for their CQC inspection? Check out our CQC guides for GPs, aesthetic clinics, salons and care homes.
