How we prioritise risk

From July 2021 we will introduce a monthly review of the information we have on most of the services we regulate. This will not include primary care dental providers or NHS trusts at first.

The monthly review will help us to prioritise our activity and guide how we respond.

Where our review indicates that a service may be lower risk, we will publish a statement on our website.

These services will:

• be rated as either good or outstanding
• be meeting all the regulations
• not be subject to any regulatory activity
• show no evidence that tells us we need to re-assess the rating or quality at that time.

Where our review indicates there may be higher risk, we will make additional checks. This will include gathering people’s experiences of care and contacting the provider.

For services that we consider to be very high risk, we will carry out an inspection.

We will continue to prioritise and respond to risk and changes in the quality or safety of care in NHS trusts and primary care dental providers.

To assure ourselves that our approach is working, we will inspect a random sample of services with a public statement published.