In a recent press release, the British Dental Association (BDA) welcomed the latest Care Quality Commission (CQC) ‘State of Care Report’, which gave dental services in England a big thumbs up.

Within the report

• 100% of dental practices inspected by the CQC in 2016/17 met their standards for caring and responsiveness to their patients’ needs.
• 99% were found to be ‘effective’ in achieving good health outcomes.
• 96% were found to be ‘safe’.
• 89% were considered to be ‘well-led’.

This is really good news to us and should be good news for you too, knowing you are receiving a good service from your dental practice.

But what do you think defines a good service?

CQC inspections put us under intense scrutiny, a process we dread yet at the same time relish as an opportunity to showcase the high standard of care we deliver here.

It truly matters to us that peoples’ experience of our service is great.

We want to but we don’t always get it right!

We encourage and monitor patient feedback and proactively review our service delivery. We always learn more from the mistakes, when things haven’t quite gone to plan and it’s these moments that create positive changes for future improvements.

Dental professionals are also regulated by the General Dental Council (GDC), who have set out clearly defined standards of conduct, performance and ethics, to which we adhere closely.

The GDC also sets out what patients can expect from a dental professional, visit the ‘Information for patients’ section of their website.

https://www.gdc-uk.org/patients/what-is-dentistry

Standards are important but aren’t they just a baseline above which we should be setting our goals for achieving a ‘five star’ service?

If you had to complete a ‘State of Care’ report for St Paul’s Dental Practice, how would you rate us?