We work with the Health Boards, Welsh Government, Health Education and Improvement Wales, patients and public, and other partners in the system to maximize the value of dental services in Wales. We promote and/or participate in innovation, research and evaluation to improve equity, safety and cost-effectiveness of dental services in Wales.
Working with the partners in the system, we aim to develop a dental system that is continuously learning and improving so that it achieves the best possible outcome for the population in Wales.
Dental Services Reform Programme: Welsh Government set out strategic direction on oral health improvement and reform of dental services in Oral Health and Dental Services Response to the Healthier Wales. This provided a unique opportunity to ensure primary care dental services are prevention and outcome focused and fit for the future generations.
We worked with the Welsh Government, Health Boards, Health Education and Improvement Wales, dental service providers and other key stakeholders to start the General Dental Services (GDS) Reform Programme in 2017. Further information can be found at https://primarycareone.nhs.wales/topics1/dental-public-health/dental-reform/
Healthcare Inspectorate Wales is the independent inspectorate and regulator of healthcare in Wales.
The All-Wales Dental Practice Quality Assurance Self-assessment (QAS): The Dental Public Health team hosts all-Wales dental practice QAS toolkit and co-ordinates the annual self-assessment process on behalf of Health Boards and dental practices in Wales. We also host multi-stakeholder bi-annual GDS Quality and Safety Forum meetings.
The QAS is a self-assessment toolkit that supports the General/Personal Dental Service (GDS/PDS) providers in Wales to identify areas for Quality and Safety improvement in their practice. Completion of the QAS toolkit also helps dental practices to comply with their NHS GDS/PDS contractual requirement. All dental practices with an NHS dental contract complete the QAS toolkit annually. In addition to practices themselves identifying areas for improvement through self-assessment, the completed QAS toolkits in each health board area are also assessed by dental practices advisors (DPAs) employed by health boards. The DPAs provide advice to the dental contract management teams in Health Boards if there are any Quality and Safety concerns arising from the practices’ self-assessments.
Quality improvement (QI) advice and support to practices is available from Health Boards’ dental practice advisors. A suite of QI toolkits, audits and resources (including funding) are available for the dental practices from the Health Education and Improvement Wales (HEIW) Quality Improvement Programme . Dental practices can contact the QI educator assigned to their health board area for further advice and support.
Dental Practice inspection in Wales
Healthcare Inspectorate Wales (HIW) is the independent inspectorate and regulator of healthcare in Wales. HIW carries out dental practice inspections. Dental practice inspection reports are available from their website.
If you have any queries related to the QAS, please contact dentalpublichealth@wales.nhs.uk
Last updated: June 2023