The Red Tape Challenge and Dentistry
 

The Cabinet Office no less has opened a web-site http://www.redtapechallenge.cabinetoffice.gov.uk
The aims and objectives are stated as ‘You tell us what’s working and what’s NOT, what can be simplified and what can be scrapped.’

It continues ‘Based on your feedback, we start getting rid of unnecessary red tape.’
In effect, Businesses have been invited to blow the whistle on regulations that are both excessive and inconsistent in an effort to reduce the compliance burden faced by many firms.
The new drive, aimed at freeing enterprises from the shackles that administering the rules often imposes, is a result of feedback that the Government has received since launching its Red Tape challenge.

The challenge asked firms to identify those rules where tick-box regulation, multiple inspections and contradictory advice are making it more difficult both to run their businesses and to develop and grow.

Specifically, the Government wants to hear about the way in which regulations are being enforced.
These include those aspects of enforcement which businesses find most difficult to deal with; the impact of enforcement on the running of firms; the willingness of regulators to recognise the efforts of businesses to comply with the rules; the ease or otherwise with which businesses can appeal against or complain about the way regulations are enforced; and the flexibility of regulation enforcement when measured against the ability of firms to develop and evolve.

The web- site highlights general areas of red tape but does NOT refer to the Dentistry profession, which since the introduction of the Care Quality Commission (CQC) is now super-regulated.
If the practice is an NHS Practice, there is regulation from PCT’s, the GDC and now the CQC.
If just private practice there is regulation from the GDC and now the CQC.

Initial registrations have at least been coming through Dentists’ letterboxes. However it seems as though greater and more detailed inspections will follow after the first registration procedures. It is no time to relax!

Is it time for Dentists to take the Red Tape Challenge? If so through the BDA, or GDPUK.  A few protests from a few dentists will not have the same impact as a collective approach. The legislation upon which the CQC obtains its authority was after all law passed by the previous Government.