Care Quality Commission
23 January 2012
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CQC Documents
Members may find it helpful to review the following documents recently circulated by CQC:
- CQC ‘dear colleague’ letter dated 30 July 2010 explains the new system of registration under the Health and Social Care Act 2008.
- It also refers to the Memorandum of understanding between CQC and GDC.
- CQC has now provided a new version of the document entitled A new system of registration: Guide for providers of primary dental care services which informs primary care providers about the new system of registration.
- CQC has produced a set of examples for primary dental care providers relating to the judgement framework.
Registration
It is the service ‘provider’ who must register. A provider may be:
- an individual
- a partnership
- an organisation.
CQC has a general application timetable and primary dental care providers are invited to sign up for an e bulletin at www.cqc.org.uk.newsandevents.newsletter.cfm
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) came into effect on 1 April 2009. It was established by the Health and Social Care Act 2008 to regulate the quality of health and social care and look after the interests of people detained under the Mental Health Act. It brings together the work of the Commission for Social Care Inspection, the Healthcare Commission, and the Mental Health Act Commission.
The Healthcare Commission ceased to exist on 1 April 2009 with the CQC taking over some of its functions. However although the Healthcare Commission was the second stage of the NHS complaints procedure this is not now a function of the CQC. This function will be carried out by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman.
From 1 April 2009, it became a legal requirement for all NHS Trusts who provide services for patients to register with the CQC. The current Regulations - The Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Registration of Regulated Activities) Regulations 2009 - specifically relate to the direct provision of health care to patients by National Health Service Trusts, NHS Foundation Trusts and by Primary Care Trusts, the provision of ambulance services to transport patients by National Health Service Trusts or NHS Foundation Trusts and the activities of NHS Blood and Transplant in relation to transfusion and transplant procedures. They do not include primary care dentistry.
Who needs to register?
Under the Health and Social Care Act 2008, providers of primary dental care that provide regulated activities must be registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) from 1 April 2011. There is no regulated activity specific to ‘dentistry'. Providers of dental care will need to consider their services against the full range of regulated activities (such as, ‘treatment of disease, disorder or injury', ‘surgical procedures', ‘diagnostic and screening procedures', etc). All primary dental care providers that provide regulated activities, whether NHS or private, must be registered from April 2011. This includes those primary dental care providers who do a mixture of both NHS and independent work. Members are advised to read the CQC's document A new system of registration; The scope of registration that sets out which regulated activities will need to be included in your registration, A new system of registration: Guide for providers of primary dental care services and The Care Quality Commission (Registration) Regulations 2009
What you can be doing now to prepare for registration
To prepare for registration, providers of primary dental care can:
1) Review the six key CQC guidance documents:
- Guidance about compliance: Summary of regulations, outcomes and judgement framework
- Guidance about compliance: Judgement framework
- Guidance about compliance: Essential standards of quality and safety
- Registration for providers of primary dental care services: Key phases of the new system
- A new system of registration: Guide for providers of primary dental care services
- A new system of registration; The scope of registration
2) Check your own internal reporting and audit systems
3) Consider what evidence you already hold and what you need to create
4) Consider evidence on outcomes
5) Be aware of activities in other sectors as they come into the new registration system.
The Health and Social Care Act 2008 requires the CQC to produce guidance for providers of health and adult social care, to help them comply with the regulations within the Act that govern their activities.
There are 28 outcomes, each reflecting a specific regulation. Of these 28 regulations and outcomes, there are 16 that relate most directly to the quality and safety of care and which apply to all types of provider. The other 12 regulations may apply differently to different types of provider.
How does it work?
The CQC will assess each registration application using a judgement framework which has been developed to help it make decisions and reach judgements about the registration status of providers. The framework aims to improve consistency in the decisions and judgements made about a provider's registration, and should provide a transparent method that can be used to check the CQC's judgements.
It focuses on the 16 regulations and associated outcomes that most directly relate to the quality and safety of care.
The framework is split into four stages:
Stage 1: Determining whether there is enough evidence to make a judgement
Stage 2: Checking whether or not the evidence demonstrates compliance, or whether there are concerns about the provider's compliance with the regulations
Stage 3: If concerns are found, making a judgement about the impact on people using services and the likelihood of the impact occurring
Stage 4: Validating the judgement.