LDC Officials’ Day 2009
LDC Officials’ Day was held at the Russell Hotel in London. The morning session was chaired by Richard Emms, LDC Conference Chair for 2010, and the afternoon session was chaired by Mick Armstrong, LDC Conference Chair elect. The programme for the day was packed with information and updates for LDCs and preliminary feedback from the event was that it was both interesting and useful.
Presentations from the day are available for download at the bottom of this page.
CQC
The morning session began with a talk from Alex Baylis, from the Care Quality Commission (CQC). He provided an update about the work of the Commission and the upcoming requirements for dental practices. He noted that registration would be required for every dental practice and that after 1 April 2011, it would no longer be legal to provide dental services without registration with the CQC. Foundation Trusts are already in the process of being registered. The LDC officials heard that the CQC will be holding national stakeholder events in order to develop the guidance for each of the activity areas. For dentistry, these events will be held from January 2010 – October 2010, when the guidance will then be published and the requirements finalised in anticipation of full registration by 1 April 2011. Such a time-frame would allow dentists a six-month lead-in, between October 2010 and April 2011, to meet the requirements and register.
Delegates heard that the CQC would be taking an outcomes-based approach to setting the standards for dental practices to meet and that the CQC has the authority to visit any practice at random, with no set pattern but a process of risk management would be used. The CQC will have powers to examine information from any source, as it deems necessary. Delegates were assured however, that CQC oversight would not result in an increased burden of inspection, as they heard that the arrangements for inspection would be locally negotiated to fit with patterns of inspection already taking place.
GDPC
John Milne discussed the recent work of the GDPC and noted the very busy period for the Committee since January 2009. The Executive has been working particularly hard on negotiating with the Department of Health on the newly developed PDS Plus template, in addition to putting together plans to pilot Professor Steele’s Independent Review of NHS dentistry.
Independent Local Commissioning Report produced by the BDA
Susie Sanderson, Chair of the BDA’s Executive Committee, chaired a Panel discussion which considered the recently published Local Commissioning Working Group report from the BDA. Panel members included James Butcher, a dental commissioner for Croydon PCT; Chris Allen, a consultant in dental public health for the South East SHA; and, Richard Emms, LDC Chair of Conference 2010.
The Panel noted the useful information in the report and the way in which it served to help both commissioners understand better the pressures under which practitioners operate, and vice versa. There were a variety of questions from the floor, which included why SHAs were not more involved in instructing PCTs in their commissioning practices, the need for members of the profession to be involved in commissioning work from an early stage and whether obsessions with dental access figures are good for World Class Commissioning.
Taking forward the work of Professor Steele
Sue Gregory, Deputy Chief Dental Officer, described the implementation process and structure that the Department of Health will be following, including the planning of pilots, as a result of Professor Steele’s Independent Review of NHS Dentistry.
The DCDO stressed that there would be ongoing discussion with leaders of the profession and openness to ideas throughout the process. The process will include the development of a variety of new quality measures and improvements to systems of data collection, through the NHS Business Services Authority. The pilots are still in development but look likely to include PCTs with average performance and involve existing practices in order that changes as a result of the pilot conditions can be observed. The Department of Health will be considering issues around the implementation of the pilots including how clinicians and patients can engage and the effects on workforce development. Pilots are expected to begin in the Spring.
Support sessions for LDCs
The BDA provided several support sessions for LDCs in the afternoon, this year. There were sessions focused on relations with PCTs, levy collection, training for Chairs and communications advice. Participants reported that these sessions were generally useful and the presentations for each session are provided at the bottom of this webpage for reference.
An update on the decontamination guidance
Martin Fulford updated delegates about the ongoing production of guidance. HTM 01 05 is now being distributed to practices and will be considered a ‘live’ document as the guidance will be continuously updated online.
