Managing risk within a dental setting has never been more pertinent in light of the recent news that health regulators will be adopting a new approach to inspections.
Care Quality Commission (CQC) chiefs set out their stall regarding potential changes to the way they regulate primary care dental services in England in a ‘signposting’ statement in August.
The CQC is promising that it plans to make inspections more targeted – focusing on dental practices where there is ‘cause for concern’, for example.
The signposting statement – A fresh start for the regulation and inspection of primary dental care services – comes ahead of a formal consultation and the start of trial inspections in November.
Ratings
Additionally, the CQC will be seeking views on whether to provide ratings to dental practices after 2016, although this looks increasingly unlikely. They are also considering ‘experts by experience’ to join their inspection teams and looks set to seek out people within dentistry who have ‘extensive understanding of our dental services’.
So, with these new plans on the horizon, is it time to reassess the risk management skills of the whole dental team?
Risk management works best when you are all conversant with the current standards and the assumed knowledge behind them so you need to ask yourself two questions:
- Do we all have a basic knowledge and understanding of potential risks and how best to manage them?
- Can we all work together within a workable and practical risk management system?
Risk management covers all aspects of dentistry – from consent, communication and compliance to clinical record keeping and medical history; from clinical negligence, advice and monitoring to the more general concepts of business risk such as patients payments and complaints handling.
Remember, there are reasons why patients choose a particular practice, clinic or dentist – and it is the overall customer experience that matters and this necessarily involves the whole team.
Research
Research shows that the quality of communication between the team and the patient can have a significant bearing on their level of satisfaction with the outcome of their treatment.
Practices that invest time and effort in training their staff in risk management, for example, will be more effective at identifying and reacting to patient dissatisfaction and so avoid the risk of litigation.
Every single member of the dental team has a part to play in risk management, but they will only do so if they are made aware of what needs to be done and why, and if they believe they can make a difference. The working environment must persuade them their contribution is encouraged, recognised, respected, valued and rewarded.
This team approach to risk management will reduce risks much more effectively than would be possible if the dentist alone has the sole responsibility for carrying out this risk management function.
Other members of the dental team, both clinical and non-clinical, need to be made aware of the many opportunities for them to take an active role in risk management, and dentists need to give them the autonomy and authority to take personal responsibility for the control and containment of risks. Always provided they have received appropriate training – this would also include some form of induction training for new practice members.
Results
Dental Protection offers a practice rewards programme that encourages this all-essential team approach to risk management and offers a helping hand towards achieving the results expected of you by CQC inspectors.
DPL Xtra offers risk management education for all team members, and subscribing practices receive a range of free and discounted risk management material from Croner and schülke as well as from Dental Protection.
The package includes access to workshops, eLearning, publications, conferences, lectures and presentations.
Senior dento-legal adviser at Dental Protection, Sue Boynton, explains: “We believe a dental team that works together to create synergies is a safer practice than one that doesn’t. Through a combination of practice-wide, teambased and individually tailored risk management, the members of a dental team working as one should lower the risk of an adverse incident occurring, or receiving a claim or complaint.”
The CQC is applying this team approach to its inspections, too. For its new-style dental inspections, it intends to adopt a collaborative approach with partners such as the General Dental Council, NHS England and the NHS Business Services Authority in monitoring dental care standards.
The regulator also wants to make sure that comments and feedback from the public and groups such as Healthwatch are integral to regulation – and patient satisfaction and excellent feedback will have a bigger impact than ever on the success of your practice in a business sense as well as clinically.
The CQC’s chief inspector of primary medical services, Professor Steve Field, says: “This statement marks a great opportunity to start discussions about the issues that matter most to the dental sector and people who use dental services. Our priority is to take a more collaborative approach with our partners in order to monitor and improve dental care standards in future. We also want to increase our dialogue not only with providers but also with people accessing dental services and groups that represent them.”