CQC dental inspection: what to expect and how to prepare

A CQC dental inspection, which CQC now calls an assessment, checks whether your practice is meeting the regulations that apply to every registered health service in England. For dental practices there is no rating at the end of it. There is a judgement, for each of the five key questions, of whether the regulations are met. This guide covers how CQC decides when to assess you, what happens from the first email to the published report, and a practical checklist you can use to prepare.

Who does CQC inspect?

The Care Quality Commission regulates health and adult social care services in England, including dental practices that provide regulated activities, NHS or private. It checks them against the fundamental standards: person-centred care, dignity and respect, consent, safety, safeguarding, premises and equipment, complaints, good governance, staffing, fit and proper staff and the duty of candour.

CQC covers England only. Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own arrangements, for example Healthcare Inspectorate Wales registers private dental practices in Wales. Individual dental professionals are regulated separately, by the GDC, across the whole UK.

How often do CQC inspect dental practices?

There is no fixed cycle. CQC's page on how often it assesses says frequency depends on the information it receives and the evidence it collects, and that it decides the order of planned assessments based on risk. Your next assessment will be either:

• planned, scheduled by CQC using its view of risk, or
• responsive, because CQC has received information of concern.

For services it does not rate, including dental practices, CQC says planned assessments initially focus on services it has not yet assessed. Historically CQC has only inspected a share of dental practices each year. In 2016, for example, it said it would inspect 10% of registered dental providers in the coming year. Many practices go several years between visits, which is exactly why preparation slips.

What are the types of CQC inspection?

Under the current approach CQC describes assessments as planned or responsive, and it gathers evidence both on site and off site. Older dental reports you will find on the CQC website use different language: comprehensive inspections that looked at all five key questions, and focused inspections that followed up specific concerns or breaches. If you are reading a competitor's report from a few years ago, that is the framework it was written under.

CQC dental inspection: what to expect, step by step

CQC's guidance on how it gathers evidence sets out the process. For a dental practice it usually runs like this:

1. Notice. CQC says it applies its existing rules on giving notice, and it will email you when an assessment starts. It may visit without notice, for example in response to a specific concern.
2. Evidence requests. CQC may ask for evidence at the start, most likely by email. It says providers do not need to submit evidence proactively, and that it does not want you to prepare special documents, only to share information you already have.
3. Site visit. On site, inspectors observe care and how staff interact with patients, look at the environment, equipment and premises, and talk to patients, staff and leaders. CQC says it uses site visits in a more targeted way than before.
4. Off-site evidence. Staff and leader interviews may happen online. CQC also uses feedback patients give it directly through its Give feedback on care service.
5. Feedback. CQC gives feedback once on-site or off-site activity is complete, and immediately after a site visit where it can.
6. Draft report and factual accuracy check. You receive the draft and can tell CQC where information is factually wrong or where the evidence is incomplete, through its factual accuracy check.
7. Publication. The final report is published on your CQC profile.

How CQC judges a dental practice

CQC does not rate dental practices. Its page on services it does not rate explains the alternative. Inspectors judge each evidence category they assess as either Regulations met or Not all regulations met. Those judgements build up to a judgement for each quality statement and then each key question: safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led.

The rule to remember is that a single "not all regulations met" judgement in any evidence category carries through to the quality statement and key question it sits under. There is no averaging. A strong practice with one neglected area will show that area on the published report.

The quality statements and evidence categories CQC uses for dental services are covered in detail in our guide to the CQC key questions, and on CQC's own primary dental services evidence pages.

What happens if you are found in breach

If CQC finds a breach it can take regulatory action. In the 2016 review of its first year of dental inspections, it described issuing requirement notices, which require a provider to make improvements, and in more serious cases warning notices and changes to a provider's registration conditions. It followed up with focused re-inspections where it had found breaches.

That same review listed the problems it found most often: managing complaints and concerns, risk assessments, incomplete or out-of-date dental care records, staff supervision, support and training, infection prevention and control, medicines and equipment for medical emergencies, and incomplete recruitment checks. The framework has changed since, but that list is still a sensible place to start looking at your own practice.

CQC dental inspection checklist

CQC does not publish a dental inspection checklist, and it says there isn't a full list of evidence that fits every service. The list below is a practical dental practice inspection checklist built around the five key questions and the problem areas CQC has reported. Use it for a mock inspection with your practice manager.

Safe

• Infection prevention and control audits completed and acted on, decontamination records up to date.
• Safeguarding policy, a named lead, and training records for every team member.
• Medical emergency drugs and equipment present, in date and checked to a recorded schedule.
• Radiography documentation in order. CQC's information for dental providers links its guidance on ionising radiation.
• Risk assessments current, including fire and the premises.
• Recruitment files complete for every member of staff, including criminal record and work history checks.

Effective

• Dental care records complete and up to date, including assessment and consent.
• Clinical audits carried out, with changes recorded and re-audited.
• Referral processes that track whether patients were seen.

Caring

• Privacy at reception and in surgeries.
• Patient feedback collected and acted on. Public reviews count too, and how you reply to Google reviews is visible to anyone who looks.

Responsive

• A complaints procedure that is easy to find, used, and logged with outcomes.
• Accurate information for patients, including opening hours, fees, NHS or private status and how to get urgent care.
• Reasonable adjustments for patients who need them.

Well-led

• Policies with review dates that have been met.
• Minuted team meetings, incident reporting and evidence of learning.
• A clear way for staff to raise concerns.
• Supervision, appraisal and training records, including GDC CPD.

How to prepare your team

Feedback from staff and leaders is one of the evidence categories CQC lists against every dental quality statement, so your team is part of the evidence. CQC does not publish a script, and rehearsed answers sound rehearsed. Instead:

1. Make sure every team member knows who leads on safeguarding, infection control and complaints.
2. Walk each person through what happens in a medical emergency, including where the equipment is.
3. Ask reception to talk through how a complaint is handled from the first phone call.
4. Make sure everyone knows how to raise a concern about the practice itself.
5. Keep the evidence where the practice manager can find it in minutes, not hours.

Reading CQC dental inspection reports

Every published report sits on the practice's CQC profile, and you can search all dental services on the CQC website. Reading the recent reports for practices near you is one of the best ways to prepare, because they show what inspectors in your area focused on and how they wrote it up. Look at which key questions were found "not all regulations met", and what the evidence was.

CQC is also changing its framework. It consulted on four sector-specific frameworks in 2026, is piloting them from June to October 2026 with a final evaluation in November, and was still piloting them in its 27 August 2026 update. It has said it will work with sectors it does not rate, including dental, on how they will be assessed. Until CQC announces otherwise, prepare against the current framework. A CQC view of nearby practices is also part of what Practice Radar shows on the features page, if you want the local picture without searching profile by profile.