Refurbishing or building a brand new dental practice is always going to be a somewhat stressful process. Negotiating with contractors and making the right design choices are made all the more difficult with the added pressures of making sure that your project is fully compliant with both the building regulations and CQC. With a wealth of obstacles to consider and carefully navigate, the project can become a bit of a headache, however, this need not be the case. The CQC covers a huge number of areas and many of these facets are also dealt with by the building regulations. It is therefore much more practical to try and abide by the building regulations before negotiating the standards of CQC. By doing this you will find that when the time comes to look at CQC, a number of areas have already been dealt with, such as disabled access, health and safety, fire safety and some aspects of cross-infection.
The main reason that CQC has become the primary concern for dentists building or refurbishing a practice is that their has been a great deal of media attention surrounding a number of high profile cases where projects have been shut down due to non-conformance with CQC. Many are therefore terrified of non-compliance and this is why they see it is a primary objective when building a practice. The correct thing to do is to think about it logically and cater to building regulations first.
Unbeknownst to most there have also been a number of interesting projects (both new builds and refurbishments) where complying with the building regulations has overridden CQC standards. With these, it is often the case that a CQC inspector has visited the site once the project has been completed and found some areas that they felt contradicted CQC. However, once certification of accordance with the building regulations was presented, the CQC backed off. This is likely to be because the CQC will not want to argue with another government body that is protecting the building from issues concerning health and safety.
By ignoring this advice and designing a dental practice that follows the guidelines stated within CQC you could be left with a building that whilst compliant with CQC, stands no chance of meeting the demands of the building regulations. If the project does not meet these standards it will come to an abrupt halt, wasting not only a great deal of time but also a lot of money. Therefore, the primary concern of the project must be to meet the standards of building regulations before even attempting to comply with CQC.
Though CQC and the building regulations overlap in a number of places, it is important to be aware that there are some areas of CQC which aren’t covered and these must be considered. These are mainly concerning compliance with HTM01-05. For instance, if the project is a new build then the design of the building must provide a designated dirty room and clean room with through access. If the project is a refurbishment then it is a little easier to accommodate. In this scenario you are allowed to have a single local decontamination room, but this room must be split internally, with one side clean and the other side dirty. Whether you have one or two rooms does not concern the building regulations, however you will need to be mindful of how many rooms you will be accommodating when space planning.
Working out a way of negotiating CQC and the building regulations is very tricky, so it is advisable to seek professional help.
Building or refurbishing a dental practice is a complicated procedure that isn’t made any easier by the demands of CQC and building regulations. The problem with attempting to follow CQC guidelines in every way is that you will end up with a building that will cost more both financially and in terms of space. The way to approach compliance is to make sure that the building is compliant with building regulations first and then approach the areas of CQC that it has missed. If you have completed your project and have signed off on building regulations, but upon inspection CQC are unhappy with the building, there is no need to despair. Present your building regulations document to prove that you have met all of its requirements. If you can produce this document, there is very little that the CQC will be able to do.