Cornice matters.

Last Thursday saw me sitting in a large room with about 60 other general dentists, at Coombe Abbey, near Coventry. The room was built in 1684. The plasterwork cornice had the date moulded into it. A superb venue for another Denplan Key Client forum - a whole day of lectures and discussion on what REALLY matters in dentistry; the patients and how to look after them.

Not rubbish like "targets" or the amazingly twee "best practice" bandied about by the NHS, or "outcomes" and "governance" beloved of the CQC. But information and dialogue about how we, the PRACTICE OWNERS (not a bunch of second tier paperpushers) can improve OUR businesses (that`s OURS as in it belongs to US, Mr PCT man) to look after OUR patients (again Mr PCT man - the patients belong to us NOT YOU).

Naturally with the excessive and ill-advised amount of "compliance" foisted on us there was much talk of the CQC, HTM01-05, PCTs and numerous other useless and onerous interfering bodies and I`ll bore you with one story only.

An old friend of mine (whom I would gladly work with) had a scurrilous complaint made against his practice by an unknown - but suspected - party. This resulted in two senior CQC officers appearing unannounced at 9.30a.m. They had a list of 16 breaches of the rules or guidelines and they stayed until 7.15p.m. pulling the place to pieces. They told the dentist that they knew it was a malicious complaint but they have to do their work, of course. The practice is a Denplan Excel practice - like mine. These CQC men SHOULD have realised that there was little case to answer and stayed an hour or so and then pushed off - but no - 7.15pm was when they chose to leave. I wonder if they get overtime? The practice doesn`t.

They found NOTHING as expected but still asked some questions which beggar belief. One of which was "How frequently is the ornamental cornice in this surgery cleaned? Weekly"? The building is old with high, high ceilings and elaborate cornice around the room. The answer given was that is was decorated as they could see, but getting someone 12 feet up a ladder every week to dust it was a major health and safety problem. Why the CQC think that there is any harm coming from cornice is beyond all of us who have heard it.

Its in the same vein as banning magazines in doctor`s and dentist`s waiting rooms because they are a "cross infection risk".

Anyway. The practice passed, and now has a lovely marketing tool it can use by saying that the CQC spent 9.75 hours examining the practice and was very happy. Pats on the head all around. So it may have benefitted the business. But who the hell looks on a CQC website to choose their dentist? And on the practice website who would realise who the CQC are? Few.

Still, nice to know that the practice owner`s £800 per annum taken by the CQC goes to such good use.

Not.