Registration with the Care Quality Commission

In 2008 Government decided to merge the existing regulatory bodies for health (the Health Care Commission) and social care (the Commission for Social Care Inspection), along with the body tasked with looking after the interests of people detained under the Mental Health Act, into a single, independent regulator, the Care Quality Commission (CQC). The CQC took up its new responsibilities on 1 April 2009 and will now begin the process of registering all providers of health and social care.   As part of this process it will become mandatory for both private and NHS practices to register with the CQC in 2011.

The aim of merging these bodies is to ensure that all providers of health and social care are operating to a single, consistent set of standards as well as giving service users, their carers and families a single port of call for information on services, their quality and availability. The CQC is aiming to achieve a registration system that is suitable for various types and sizes of providers, encourages consistency, enables comparison, and recognises both good and poor practice. To achieve these aims, the CQC has set out 16 registration requirements based on the core risks inherent in the provision of care. In order to obtain and maintain their registration, each practice will need to be able to demonstrate compliance with the regulations in the following areas:

• Care and welfare of service users

• Assessing and monitoring the quality of provision

• Safeguarding vulnerable service users

• Management of medicines and medical devices

• Cleanliness and infection control

• Meeting nutritional needs

• Safety and suitability of premises

• Safety, availability and suitability of equipment

• Respecting and involving service users

• Consent to care and treatment

• Complaints

• Records

• Competence and suitability of workers

• Staffing

• Effective management of workers 

• Cooperating with other providers

The CQC has now set out in draft regulations the requirements for registration in each of these areas. The BDA is responding to the draft regulations, which set out very general standards which all types of health and social care provision are expected to meet. It is recognised that demonstrating compliance on each will vary between care settings and so the CQC will be developing and consulting on further guidance for dental practices in due course, which will set out more specifically what the CQC would expect practices to demonstrate in order to achieve compliance.