Eventually the CQC will pay your practice a visit.  Are you ready for them, or do you think you can fob them off by making them a cup of tea and giving them a few HobNob’s?

From Stephen Hudson BDS, MFGDP, DRDP

Monday, 19.47 PM

Dear Friend

For the last few years, Chris Barrow has been predicting that the government would do to dentists what they did to the financial services all those years ago, implement vast swathes of regulation.  And he was right.  The Health and Social Care act 2008, for the first time put a single agency in charge of the inspection of ALL dental practices.  The CQC has the power to inspect you, censor you, close you down, and also has the power to apply financial and Criminal sanction against you.  Yes folks, there is the ever so subtle threat of Jail time lurking in the back pages of that legislation.

So when it comes to regulation and compliance, this really isn’t something you can just dabble at.  To be safe, to feel secure, and to comply with them and their masters, it is my opinion you have to go all out.

If they want paperwork, I say give them paperwork.  I say give them more paperwork than they know what to do with…….. and then give them some more.  They want logs and evidence of staff training, then they can have it.  If they want policies and procedures, audits and statistics, then I’ve got a whole bookcase full of folders and files for them to fill their little tick boxes with.  Give them what they want, with a smile on your face.

Now there is a reason I hold this opinion.  I have a relative who worked in a care home several years ago, and she saw first hand what a CQC inspection meant.

The staff there used to call the CQC inspectors “The Third Reich”

I was told it was not pleasant, and it was not nice.  The CQC is a burden, a burden we could really do without.  And if you are like me, then you really don’t need a folder full of policies to competently place an MO amalgam or do a veneer prep.  You built up your practice, worked hard on your skills and your customer service……. and now some bureaucrat is going to come with a clipboard and start poking their noses in where it’s not wanted.

Let’s tell it like it is, It’s a pain in the backside

Unfortunately you can’t do anything about it.  The CQC is backed up by legislation.  They are the law.  You have more chance of getting the speed limit on the motorway changed.  And what most people don’t know is that they are the victims here as well.  The CQC didn’t want anything to do with UK dentists.  We were already the most regulated in the world.  The CQC aren’t ready for us, they don’t really know what we do, and they aren’t even sure how to go about their monitoring.

But don’t for one second think that they won’t get their act together, and quickly.  Once they have ironed out the creases, learnt which box needs to go where, they will be ready.  They will descend upon you with the power of legal and financial sanction behind them.  Will you be ready?

Now several months ago I thought I was ready.  I had the practice management and Clinical Governance packages from two well known agencies, one of whom told me that if I was able to meet their inspection requirements, then that would meet CQC requirements.

But you know what, something didn’t feel right about that.  Something seemed to be missing, and so being me, I did some investigating.

What I discovered SHOCKED and ANGERED me!!!

I was shocked because I wasn’t ready, not even close.  Oh yes I had “some” of the evidence, but I wasn’t even half way to being compliant.  Fortunately I discovered this BEFORE I did my CQC registration.  I was able to correct the situation so that I could confidently report that I was compliant in all Outcomes.

I know have a large folder busting with paper evidence.  You name a policy, I’ve got it.  you name a procedure, it’s written down.  I’ve got staff training logs, staff development folders, Cross infection logs and end of day checklists.  I’ve got equipment logs, patient feedback and patient forum minutes.  I’ve got a Safe Haven Policy, Child patient survey statistics and SAB alert procedures.

I was ANGRY because I had paid out all this money to third party organisations, and I ended up having to write a lot of the basic policies and procedures MYSELF.

You know what, I don’t know about you, but I kind of have better things to do with my time. And yes, I could have paid someone else to do this all for me, but I’d already tried that and I was still having to tap away on a bloody keyboard………

And have you seen what some of these people and companies are charging???I have seen prices range from £500 to £5000.

And this is where another of Chris Barrows Predictions comes in.  The way things are going, it won’t be long before the majority of independent practices no longer exist.  The dental landscape will be the corporates, high end practices servicing the wealthy and the elite and a dwindling supply of independent practices that are only surviving because they have joined forces to pool their resources and formed cooperatives.

The days of the single handed practitioner are over

So, where do I come into this?

Well, as I am sure you are aware, I sell certain products on this website.  My best seller is the Practice Systems Templates.  So whilst I was sat there chained to my laptop with papers and folders strewn all about my surgery and not a patient in sight, a thought came to me.

I could put everything I am having to write together as a product so other dentists don’t have to spend WHOLE DAYS getting irradiated by their computer screens.  To be honest, it’s kind of what kept me going.

This is what spawned the product Can’t Quite Comply.

So before I tell you how much this is going to cost, let’s see what you will actually be getting for your money.  Enclosed in the product, you will find the following

• Audit of Specialist referrals template
• Child patient survey statistics template
• Clinical decision making policy
• Consent to examination and treatment policy
• Contaminated item transfer procedure
• Cross infection control policy summary
• Decontamination of new re-usable equipment policy
• Decontamination and storage of dental instrument policy
• Dental practice cleaning checklist for cleaner
• Dental treatment planning policy
• Disability policy
• Environmental cleaning and maintenance policy
• Environmental cleaning frequencies
• Environmental disinfection log
• Equality, diversity and human rights policy
• Equality and anti-discrimination policy
• Inoculation Injury flow chart
• Inoculation Injury  procedures
• Needlestick policy
• New Employee Induction
• New Employee Induction – first month
• Emergency O2 bottle check chart
• Patient’s movement through the practice
• Policy for Patient Payment
• Patients Payment procedure
• Patient Safety Policy (including Whistleblowing Guidance)
• Patient Survey statistics chart
• Practice eCRB check policy
• Practice meeting minutes template
• Practice training record
• Prescribing and Dispensing Policy
• Register of POM
• Risk Management Policy
• SAB Alert Procedure
• Safe Haven Policy
• Serious untoward incident policy
• Staff CPR training log
• Staff First Aid training log
• Transfer of contaminated items from the treatment room to the decontamination room policy
• Waste Disposal Policy

Phew, that’s quite a list.  In all, 85 pages of Microsoft word, all in template form so you can alter and adjust them to the needs of your practice. Now imagine how long it would take you to sit down in front of a computer and write all that out.  Add on the research time, the Google searching and the collating and ask yourself if that’s worth £250 of your time.

Of course, that was what I was GOING to charge.  But my business advisor thinks that this is an outrageous price, far too cheap for the time and effort I put into this.  Of course, what my business advisor fails to realise is that I wrote all this for me.  Selling it as a product is just an added bonus.  So he might be disappointed.

Now it will only be a matter of time before someone asks me the question:

Steve, can you guarantee that your product will fill all the gaps in my compliance evidence?

Well of course I can’t. I’m not the BDA.  I’m not CODE.  I don’t have their resources.  I’m just some guy who sat down for two weeks and almost became joined at the hip to a laptop that was at times annoyingly slow and unnervingly warm.  I do not know what the CQC inspector will want to see when s/he comes to your practice.  I wouldn’t know how to be a box ticker if you gave me an umbrella and a bowler hat and made me work in Whitehall with the promise of private health care and a generous pension.  What I can say is that I believe this product will help.  What I know is that what I have created filled the holes in MY compliance folder to the extent that I now believe I am compliant.

Unless you are absolutely in love with this pen pushing shabbiness, you will still need other products.  You will still need to give someone else your hard earned money.  But from what I have seen, none of the other products on the market have much of what I had to sit down and write………. which is kind of why I had to sit down and write them.

And that’s why I’m selling it to you.  But not for £250……. but for £68.50

You see, this isn’t about me making money, it never was.  I never created this website with the illusion that it would allow me to sit on the beach enjoying drinks with stupid umbrellas in them whilst Bikini clad Vixens massaged Coconut oil into my scalp……… crikey, now there’s an image.  No my goal was to make the website self funding and perhaps even get it to earn enough to make the effort profitable enough that I could give a significant sum to the two charities it supports.

I’ve never done it for the money, because the market is too small.  I do it for the feeling of contribution I receive from the emails of feedback I get, and the knowledge that if I have helped just one person step off the dental treadmill, it was all worth the effort.

Of course, my business advisor will go absolutely nuts when he reads this.

Oh well

So if you buy now, you can get 85 pages of procedures, policies and protocols for the very reduced price of

£68.50

Of course you can always buy it later.  But what’s to say the price won’t be vastly higher the next time you stop by.  Have you see the inflation rate?

Press the link below to buy this product today.