How we monitor primary care dental services

Read further information about our monitoring approach.

Sources of information

We collect and analyse information about dental practices from a range of sources. This helps us to target our resources where the risk to the quality of care is greatest. The information influences what we look at, who we will talk to and how we configure our inspection team.

We gather information from people who use services, other regulators and oversight bodies, local organisations, other stakeholders and service providers.

We update our analysis throughout the year to make sure our inspectors have the most recently available information about services. This information helps us to plan when and what we inspect. We will include some of the information in your inspection report as evidence to support our judgements about the quality of care.

We gather information from the following organisations

• NHS England and Improvement
• General Dental Council
• NHS Business Services Authority
• Healthwatch England

Provider information request

Before we inspect, we may ask you for information that will help us to prepare our inspection and help us to understand more about the care and the service you provide.

The information we will request is likely to include, for example:

• an up-to-date statement of purpose
• information about membership of any accreditation/good practice scheme
• details of your staff, including numbers of staff by role and hours worked
• a summary of complaints you have received, with details of actions you have taken and any improvements made

This is not a full list and we may ask for further information depending on the information available to us.

You will have five working days to respond to our request. We will tell you what information to send, where to send it and who to contact if you have any questions.