Dear Colleague
CLINICAL AUDIT REQUIREMENTS
Most NHS practitioners will be aware of the need to meet their clinical audit requirements. However there may be a few who are not. NES has been asked to circulate this letter to remind you of the end of the 3 year audit cycle on the 31st July 2013.
If you were already on the dental list on the 1st August 2010, you must undertake 15 hours of clinical audit activity within the cycle. If you have joined the dental list since the 1st August 2010, please see overleaf for a summary of your audit hour requirements.
Compliance with audit activity will be monitored in the new Combined Practice Inspection Checklist, In addition, Health Boards who now have access to audit activity reports,are monitoring compliance and developing plans to manage those who haven’t complied by the end of the cycle.
Many practitioners achieved 5 hours within the 1st year of the cycle, the majority by undertaking the OHA audit, but still have a further 10 hours outstanding. It is clearly in your own best interest to ensure that you do not fall foul of the requirements.
To help dentists comply, NES have restructured the Clinical Audit section of the website to provide a simple step by step process for those planning their audit or submitting a significant event analysis (SEA). Following these steps should minimise the risk of a project being rejected by the Regional Audit Assessment Panels (RAAP’s). Details of the RAAP’s can be found in the audit section at:
There are a number of pre-approved audits available which may be of interest, focussing on infection control, as well as a new audit on Patient Experience. These can be found at:
and once logged in, click on the “Audit Documents” tab of the iBooklet section.
Also within Portal, it is possible to check that we have recorded your audit activity correctly by clicking on “Reports and Certificates” and viewing your “vCPD Record”. If you find anything missing or inaccurate, please let us know by contacting your local RAAP.
Please remember that an audit or SEA takes some time to complete so any dentist who is short of clinical audit hours will need to act soon to achieve compliance.
Can we remind you that the Chief Dental Officer, in CDO(2011)01, 20 June 2011, stated:
“Failure by GDPs to have complied with their audit requirements (…)will result in those GDPs being ineligible for inclusion in the calculation of Dental Practice allowance payments after this date.”
If you have any queries about compliance, local support for audit activity or what measures your Health Board may take for non-compliance, please contact your local Health Board or Dental Practice Adviser.
If you have any queries about this letter or audit in general, please contact your local RAAP – details are in the audit section of the website as detailed above.
Yours sincerely
TONY ANDERSON
SE Director of Postgraduate GDP Education on behalf of the regional Directors and RAAPs
Clinical Audit hours:
1. Most practitioners will have been registered with their Health Board prior to and including the1st August 2010. In this case you need to carry out 15 hours of clinical audit before 31st July 2013. (This would include Vocational Dental Practitioners who startedVT on 1st August 2010 and moved to become an associate in August 2011.)
2. If the date you joined theHealth Board listwas between 2nd August 2010 and the 31st December 2010, then you need to complete 10 hours of clinical audit before the 31st July 2013.
3. If the date you joined theHealth Board listwas between 1st January 2011 and the 31st December 2011, then you need to complete 5 hours of clinical audit before the 31st July 2013.
4. If the date you joined theHealth Board listwas between 1st January 2012 and the 31st December 2012, then you need to complete 0 hours of clinical audit before the 31st July 2013.
5. The new audit cycle then starts again on 1st August 2013 and runs until 31st July 2016. Anyone on the list as of 1st August 2013 will have 15 hours to complete by August 2016.