The CQC, which regulates health and social care providers in England – including over 10,000 dental practices – is moving to a system of setting fees on a full cost recovery basis, and has opened a consultation on its proposed fees for 2017/18. Should the proposals go ahead, every provider type other than dental surgeries would see an increase in fees, with significant increases of 76 per cent for GPs and almost 50 per cent for hospital trusts.
However, after reporting in 2015 that, “over several years, we have found that, compared with other sectors, dental services present a lower risk to patients’ safety”, the CQC reduced the number of practices it inspects each year to 10 per cent. Now, it is anticipated that the costs it incurs in regulating dental practices will fall from £8.4m in 2016/17 to £7.3m in 2017/18.
Fees paid by dentists already fully cover the CQC’s dental costs, so, under the new fee setting arrangements, the cost savings in inspecting the sector will be passed on to providers. By contrast, GPs currently pay only 57 per cent of the costs of regulating GP surgeries, with the rest being picked up by the taxpayer.
Responding to the proposed fee changes, Mick Horton, dean of FGDP(UK), said:
“Only last week, the CQC’s annual report demonstrated once again that dentists provide safer care than any other health profession, and it is welcome and well deserved that this will now be reflected in a decrease in the fees dentists pay.
“Dentists are also the only sector whose fees cover their CQC regulatory costs in full, and through their taxes dentists also subsidise the fees of other providers. There is no justification for dentists being singled out in this way, and we welcome the proposal to move forward with a fairer fee structure which reflects the risk profiles of different provider types.”