Regulated by the CQC – what exactly does this mean?

 

You may have noticed that on our CK Dental home page there is a banner showing that we are regulated by the Care Quality Commission, commonly known as the CQC. This is something we’re proud of, especially as we are meeting all CQC national standards, but unless you work in a CQC-regulated profession, it may not be clear what this is. So, here’s what it means to be relegated by the CQC.

CK Dental and CQC regulation

The Care Quality Commission is an independent regulator of health and social care, whose remit is to ‘monitor, inspect and regulate services that provide health and social care’. As part of this remit, the CQC ‘make[s] sure [dentists, and other regulated professionals] meet fundamental standards of quality and safety and we publish what we find, including performance ratings to help people choose care’.

 

Some professions receive CQC ratings, whereby different providers are ranked against one another. Dental practices are not rated and ranked in this way by the CQC.

Information via a variety of sources

The CQC uses different data collection methods to regulate dentists, including developing close working relationships with the practices themselves, gathering feedback from patients and receiving reports from CQC inspectors.

In consulting with the public, the CQC is keen that it gives a voice to those who are using the services. By encouraging open dialogue, they believe they can really get to the heart of what’s important to the service users, and ideally ensure that there is a ‘you spoke, we listened’ attitude taken to any thoughts, suggestions or concerns raised.

If there is a problem that is identified, then findings, recommendations and suggestions for improvement are published so that dental practices are fully accountable for how they run and the way in which they are managed. All findings and recommendations are available within the public domain, ensuring high levels of transparency.

Wider reading – have a flick through the report

As all reports are available in the public domain, if you’re interested in reading the full CQC report on CK Dental Practice, please click on the link here to see how we did.