Registered in the UK — and your first CQC inspection is still ahead of you
You have entered England as the framework that will judge you is being rewritten. Your first inspection will almost certainly sit under CQC’s new model — which means the evidence you build from day one is the evidence you’ll be assessed on. This is the position you can verify today, the change landing under it, the pattern inspectors keep finding in dental practices, and the one thing no national dataset can see.
The 30-second read
Position
Two UK locations registered with CQC — London (Nine Elms) and Manchester (Hale) — and neither has been inspected yet. Dentistry is judged on regulatory compliance, not a Good/Outstanding rating.
What's changing
The framework your first inspection sits under is being rewritten now — the new Primary Care & Community Services framework, piloting through summer 2026 and live end-2026. Quality statements give way to KLOEs and the evidence bar shifts to outcomes.
The pattern
Across CQC’s dental inspection record, around one in eight practices had at least one regulation not met — clustered in governance, safe care and recruitment. CQC inspects roughly 10% of dental practices a year, so your first visit is a question of when.
The 30 minutes
What no dataset can see is where your day-one evidence sits against the new KLOEs. You leave the call with your top-three readiness gaps and the first action on each.
Both UK locations are registered but not yet inspected — the rare position of building your CQC evidence base from a clean start, before the first visit.
Annual inspection rate
~10% / yr
CQC aims to inspect around a tenth of dental practices each year (roughly 500 locations per inspector). The first visit is a matter of timing, not if.
Cohort exposure
~1 in 8
Of dental practices in CQC’s inspection record with a published outcome, about an eighth had at least one regulation not met — concentrated in a few recurring areas.
Your UK estate on the CQC register
2 locations · England
Both clinics are registered to provide treatment of disease, disorder or injury and surgical procedures as a dental practice. Neither carries a published inspection outcome yet — the governance story is the same across both, which is itself on-message for a framework that asks for one consistent standard across every site.
Location
Service
CQC status
Headline
Truly Dental London 2 Ravine Way, Nine Elms, SW11 7BH
Dentist
Not yet inspected
Flagship UK clinic; first visit likely under the new framework.
Truly Dental Manchester Hale, WA15 9SF
Dentist
Not yet inspected
Second UK site; same evidence model should carry across both.
What’s changing before your first visit
Primary Care & Community Services framework
Dental practices are not given a Good/Outstanding rating — CQC judges whether you meet the regulations. That judgement is moving to the draft Primary Care & Community Services framework (piloting summer 2026, live end-2026), which reads the same practice differently across six directional shifts. A new entrant has the advantage of building toward the destination rather than re-mapping away from the old model.
Show the six framework shifts
SHIFT 01
Outcomes over process
Evidence moves from “do you have a decontamination policy” to “what does your audit data show it achieves.” Policy must be paired with results.
SHIFT 02
Continuous, intelligence-led monitoring
Away from point-in-time visits. CQC leans on data and provider information returns between inspections — evidence has to stay continuously current.
SHIFT 03
Health inequalities & access in scope
Equity of access and outcomes — for patients and the workforce — is newly weighted, relevant to a private group entering an NHS-pressured market.
SHIFT 04
Workforce elevated within well-led
Recruitment, immunisation, indemnity, training and retention become central to the leadership judgement, not a side check.
SHIFT 05
KLOEs replace quality statements
Structured Key Lines of Enquiry under the five key questions. Evidence needs to be organised to the new structure from the start.
SHIFT 06
Pilot summer 2026, live end-2026
Implementation lands in the window your first comprehensive visit is likely to fall — so the new model is the one to build toward now.
The national dental compliance picture
CQC dental inspection record
CQC regulates around 11,500 dental locations in England. Among those with a published compliance outcome, the split is reassuring at the top line but the shortfalls concentrate in a predictable handful of regulations — the same ones a first inspection of a new practice tends to probe hardest.
Regulations met
~87%
Not all regulations met
~13%
Among dental practices in CQC’s inspection record with a published met / not-met outcome (n ≈ 1,900). Historical compliance-judgement model.
Where dental inspections most often find gaps
Recurring regulatory focus areas
When a dental practice is found not to meet a regulation, the findings cluster in six areas. Each is likely to be examined at a first inspection — and each maps onto evidence you are setting up right now across both sites.
Good governance & audit (Reg 17)most common
Decontamination / IPC (HTM 01-05)Safe care
Medical emergencies & drugsSafe care
Recruitment, DBS & indemnity (Reg 19)Fit persons
Safeguarding training levels (Reg 13)Safeguarding
Radiography / IR(ME)R auditSafe care
Show what inspectors typically find behind each
Reg 17 · governance
Good governance & audit cycles
Typical finding: infection-prevention, radiography and record-keeping audits not run on schedule or not closing the loop into action; risk assessments (legionella, fire, COSHH) out of date; oversight evidence held in disconnected places across sites.
Safe · IPC
Decontamination & infection control
Typical finding: HTM 01-05 decontamination steps not fully evidenced, validation and testing logs for autoclaves incomplete, separation of clean and dirty workflows unclear, IPC audit gaps.
Safe · emergencies
Medical emergencies & drugs
Typical finding: emergency drugs or equipment not matching Resuscitation Council UK guidance, expiry checks not logged, staff CPR/anaphylaxis training lapsed, no documented emergency simulation.
Reg 19 · fit persons
Recruitment, DBS & indemnity
Typical finding: recruitment files missing references, DBS or Hepatitis B immunity evidence; professional registration and indemnity not verified or re-checked; gaps most common when scaling headcount quickly.
Reg 13 · safeguarding
Safeguarding training & leads
Typical finding: staff trained to the wrong safeguarding level, named adult and child leads unclear, referral routes not documented, training records not current across the team.
Safe · radiography
Radiography & IR(ME)R
Typical finding: radiography audits not completed to the required cycle, IR(ME)R roles and procedures not fully documented, equipment QA and dose records incomplete.
Read as: a first inspector will arrive expecting these patterns, because they recur across the sector. As a new entrant you can build the evidence to clear all six before the visit — rather than remediate after it.
What your first inspection examines
Five key questions · dental
Key question
What a dental inspection looks for
Safe
Decontamination (HTM 01-05), medical emergencies and drugs, radiography/IR(ME)R, safeguarding, recruitment checks — the densest area for dental findings.
Effective
Evidence-based treatment and consent, clinical record quality, audit of outcomes, staff training and CPD aligned to current guidance.
Caring
Dignity, privacy and patient feedback — where Truly Dental’s Irish service record (strong public reviews) is an asset to evidence.
Responsive
Access, complaints handling, accessible-information provision, and equity of access for the local population.
Well-led
Governance, audit cycles, risk assessment, registered manager arrangements and consistency of oversight across both UK sites.
What this analysis can’t see
The reason for the conversation
Everything above is drawn from outside — your CQC registration and the patterns across the dental sector. What it cannot show is the one thing that decides your first inspection: where your current, day-to-day evidence sits against the new KLOEs — your decontamination logs, emergency-drug checks, recruitment files, audit cycles and governance as they stand today across London and Manchester. That is the work of the thirty minutes: we map your real evidence to the draft framework with you, and you leave knowing your top-three readiness gaps rather than discovering them at the visit.
What we’d work through together
6 items · the agenda for the call
Not a to-do list to tackle alone — the agenda we’d work through with you, drawn from the dental compliance pattern and the draft Primary Care framework. The first three are time-sensitive given the transition window and your pre-inspection position; the rest compound as you scale.
01
Build your evidence base to the new KLOE structure from day one
NowPre-inspection
02
Stand up a continuous-evidence cadence across both UK sites
NowOngoing
03
Pre-clear the six recurring dental findings before the first visit
HighQ3 2026
04
Make governance & audit consistent across London and Manchester
HighQ3 2026
05
Pair every policy with documented outcomes and audit data
MediumQ3–Q4 2026
06
Capture and trend patient voice systematically
MediumQ4 2026
Show what each item involves on the call
Organise registration evidence, policies and audits against the ~24 KLOEs in the draft Primary Care framework so your first inspection reads cleanly — and so the structure is reusable as you open further UK sites.
Move from “assemble before the visit” to “continuously current.” The new model is intelligence-led — target any KLOE evidence retrievable in minutes, not days.
Work through the six recurring findings — decontamination (HTM 01-05), medical emergencies, radiography/IR(ME)R, recruitment and indemnity, safeguarding levels, audit cycles — and evidence each is closed.
Define one governance and audit model that applies identically at both clinics, so the “same standard, every site” expectation of the new framework holds as you grow.
For each policy in place, document the outcome it produces (audit results, incident learning, patient outcomes) — the single biggest tonal shift in the draft framework.
Move patient feedback from your Irish review strength into a continuous capture model (reviews, complaints, compliments) with theme detection, feeding lived-experience evidence under the new framework.
We’d cover each of these against your live evidence on the call — not hand them over as homework.
Be inspection-ready before the inspector
GreenM are healthcare data and AI specialists. We connect the fragmented evidence behind a practice — decontamination and audit logs, recruitment files, training records, patient voice — so it reads cleanly against the new KLOEs, not assembled the week before a visit. You are in the rare position of building that base before your first inspection, and the framework lands in the window that visit is likely to fall. In thirty minutes you’ll leave with your top-three readiness gaps, surfaced live against the draft framework, and the first action on each.
