CQC's inspection programme of Defence Medical Services: Annual report for Year 6 (2022/23)

In 2022/23, we carried out 32 first comprehensive inspections of:

• 5 medical centres (including primary care rehabilitation facilities)
• 24 dental centres
• 1 regional rehabilitation unit
• 2 regional mental health networks

We also expanded our approach in assessments led by DMSR of a number of unique military healthcare services. These included:

• DMS Radiology
• DMS Pathology
• Military Advice and Sexual Health/HIV Service (MASHH)
• Tactical Medical Wing (TMW) Aeromedical Evacuation service
• Pre-hospital emergency care (PHEC) Cyprus (pilot inspection)
• Regimental Aid Post Sennelager, Germany (pilot inspection)

We did not apply ratings or publish reports for these inspections as they were either pilot inspections to develop future methods or reviews led and owned by DMSR.

DMSR invited us to carry out 2 pilot reviews of headquarters, focusing on leadership. To do these, we worked in a team alongside DMSR staff to deliver reviews of:

• Royal Navy Healthcare Headquarters
• Royal Fleet Auxiliary healthcare

As DMSR owns these reports, we have not published them, so we cannot comment about the resulting judgements and recommendations.

In Year 6, we also carried out 11 follow-up inspections to ensure that services have resolved the concerns we found on initial inspections. We re-inspected:

• 9 medical centres (including primary care rehabilitation facilities where DMS were able to provide the expertise of physiotherapy and exercise rehabilitation specialist advisors)
• 1 dental centre
• 1 military Department of Community Mental Health

All inspection reports for DMS medical facilities are available on our website: www.cqc.org.uk/DMS.