Unfair penalties anger dentists

Registered managers are required to be named and registered, by organisations, with the CQC since 1 October 2011.

The registered manager is registered with the CQC to be the day-to-day manager and shares the responsibility for compliance with the regulations.

If practices do not have a registered manager they may be provided with a fixed penalty notice of £4,000, increasing to £50,000 and potentially jail if the penalty is not paid.

Carol Oram, commercial director at Dental Health Spa in Brighton, received such a penalty: ‘In January this year we received an email with three notices.

‘After putting our application in back in 2011 we hadn’t heard anything and assumed it had all gone through.

‘We’re not a big corporate, we’re not doing anything deliberate or underhand, it’s purely an admin error and we’re not trying to avoid any fees because there isn’t a fee to pay for having a registered manager.’

The penalty at Dental Health Spa was given without any warning or notice to rectify the error.

With the CQC cracking down on registered managers, it is advised that dental practices register a manager straight away and check all the small print in the CQC regulations to avoid any future unexpected hefty penalties.

Favorite
Get the most out of your membership by subscribing to Dentistry CPD
  • Access 600+ hours of verified CPD courses
  • Includes all GDC recommended topics
  • Powerful CPD tracking tools included
Register for webinar
Share
Add to calendar