Primary Dental Care and Independent Ambulance Providers


Subject to legislation, providers of primary dental care and independent ambulance services that provide regulated activities must be registered with us from 1 April 2011.

Find general information about our new registration system.

This section relates to registration for primary dental care and independent ambulance providers, and any updates will be published in this section.

Who needs to register?

Under the Health and Social Care Act 2008, providers of primary dental care and independent ambulance services that provide regulated activities must be registered with us from 1 April 2011.

Read our guidance on the scope of registration that sets out which regulated activities will need to be included in your registration.

Primary Dental Care Providers

All primary dental care providers that provide regulated activities, whether NHS or private, must be registered with us from April 2011. This includes those primary dental care providers who do a mixture of both NHS and independent work.

Most primary dental care providers must be registered from 1 April 2011; however, some will need to be registered before this date.

Providers of primary dental care that will need to be registered before 1 April 2011:

  • 1 April 2010 - Where a Primary Care Trust provider arm, or an acute NHS trust hospital, directly provides dental care services, these must be included in their registration from 1 April 2010.
  • 1 October 2010 - Where an independent hospital directly provides dental care services, these must be included in their registration from 1 October 2010.

Independent ambulance providers

All independent ambulance service providers that provide regulated activities must be registered with us from April 2011.

An ambulance is defined as a vehicle which is designed for the primary purpose of carrying a person who requires treatment.

Examples of an independent ambulance service provider include:

  • Independent providers of patient transport services (PTS) who operate privately or as contractors to NHS acute trusts.
  • Operators of clinically staffed ambulances who work privately, or as contractors, to NHS ambulance trusts.
  • Charitable air ambulance services.

Further explanation can be found in our guidance on the scope of registration

Registration will also include triage and decision-making in control centres, as well as services delivered in or from vehicles. It will, however, also have a number of exemptions, for example in relation to first aid and temporary events - these are also set out in our scope guidance.

Registration does not include taxis, or hospital car service schemes used for patient transport in which volunteers provide transport in their own private vehicles.

Providers of ambulance services that will need to be registered before April 2011

Most independent ambulance providers must be required to be registered from 1 April 2011, however, those that are NHS trusts will need to be registered from 1 April 2010.

If you are an NHS trust, visit our page on registration for NHS trust

This will also include any other NHS trusts that operate their own vehicles for the primary purpose of transporting patients in connection with their treatment, such as some mental health trusts.

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Developing registration for primary dental care and independent ambulance services

Primary dental care

Dental care services are subject to a range of checks in areas such as professional regulation, NHS performance monitoring and accreditation by private insurance and membership schemes.

We are committed to reducing bureaucracy and unnecessary regulatory burden on providers and our approach to registration of primary dental care providers will aim to coordinate with existing schemes, enable consistency and avoid duplication and promote joined up care.

Independent ambulance services

Independent ambulance services are highly diverse, in terms of their services and the types of organisations, and so our approach will not be ‘one size fits all'. Some checks are already in place through trade associations and contracts, and we will seek to work with these to harmonise and strengthen assurance.

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Who we are working with

We are committed to the promotion of joined up care, improving access to timely and reliable information and putting people who use services at the centre of registration. We are therefore working with as wide a range of stakeholders as possible that include:

  • professional organisations (eg other regulatory bodies and professional indemnity insurers);
  • patient organisations (eg Local Involvement Networks);
  • other monitoring organisations;
  • insurance and membership schemes;
  • NHS commissioners;
  • trade associations; and
  • providers themselves (eg individual clinics and corporate organisations etc).

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Timetable for registration 2011

We are in the early stages of developing the registration model for primary dental care and independent ambulance providers and are engaging with our key stakeholders to help shape our work.

In the coming months, we will communicate specific timeframes for registration but have highlighted some key dates below.

Please note these dates are subject to legislation:

  • From October 2010: Registration applications open
  • From 1 April 2011: All primary dental care and independent ambulance providers must be registered with us
  • April 2011 onwards: Compliance monitoring commences

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Fees

All providers of primary dental care and independent ambulance services will be required to pay a registration fee. However, we will hold a consultation on our fees scheme that will give providers from each sector the opportunity to comment on our proposal. We will fully consult before introducing any fees and take account of views expressed.

The interim fees scheme for NHS trusts in 2010/ 2011, and the fees scheme for independent healthcare providers under the old system of registration (the Care Standards Act 2000) do not provide a blueprint for future fees. From April 2011 we will have developed an overall policy on fees applicable to each of the various types of service providers under registration. This policy will replace all former or interim schemes.

Read about our approach to fees and consultations

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What you can be doing now to prepare for registration

To prepare for registration, providers of primary dental care and independent ambulances can:

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