Dental Practice: Clinical Governance

1. Staff Management.

The appropriate recruitment and management of staff

a) Good relationships with staff;
b) The right staff in the right place at the right time;
c) Under-performance addressed;
d) Well motivated and ensured of continued education;
e) Good working conditions.

2. Public and Patient Involvement.

Public and Patient feedback used to improve services.

a) Patient feedback;
b) Good complaints monitoring and recording system;
c) Patient forum.

3. Risk Management.

Systems to understand, monitor and minimise risk to staff and patients.

a) Compliant with local protocols and rules;
b) Learning from mistakes and incidents;
c) Reporting systems for critical incidents and identifying risk;
d) Promoting responsible learning culture.

4. Clinical Effectiveness.

“Performing the right treatment to the right person at the right time and in the right place”.

a) Evidence based approach;
b) Ability to change procedures according to new evidence;
c) Compliant to outside guidelines (for instance NICE);
d) Keep learning culture.

5. Education and Training.

Appropriate support for staff to be competent.

a) Continued Professional Development for individuals;
b) Facilitating further education and professional exams;
c) Assessment to make sure further education is appropriate;
d) Regular Appraisals.

6. Information Management (and IT).

Make sure patient data is accurate, safe and up to date.

a) Good data collecting systems;
b) Confidentiality assured;
c) Feed into Audits.

7. Audit.

To monitor Clinical Practice.

a) To remedy deficiencies;
b) Reflective, personal learning;
c) Evidence of compliance;
d) Not “one off”, but audit loops.

The CQC have spread their idea of Clinical Governance across the Essential Standards, to develop an approach which marries together the CQC philosophy on providing excellent, safe healthcare with the general principles of Clinical Governance. Our Dental Management Systems contains a whole range of policies and procedures within the clinical governance section which meet the necessary CQC criteria.

8. Clinical Governance Policies.

Examples of the types of policies you can expect to find within the Clinical Governance section of the QCS Dental Management System, include: Risk Policies; Equipment Safety Policy; Premises Safety Policy; Infection Control and Decontamination Policy; PPE Policy; Practice Legionella Policy; General Health and Safety Policy; Radiography Policy; Dental Policy Treatment Planning; Dental Policy Fees; Confidentiality Policy; Prevention and Public Health; Diversity and Respect Policy; Patient Involvement Policy; Child Protection; Audit Policy and many, many more.

The Clinical Governance section has been designed with the busy dental professional in mind, so it is clear, concise and include useful forms which can be utilised to judge compliance levels. To find out more, request a Free No Obligation Trial and view the system for yourself.