CQC Interview Questions for Dental Practices: 2026 Guide

A CQC interview with a dental practice in 2027 tests one thing: whether the registered manager can show, with evidence open on screen, that the practice meets the regulations. Dental practices are not rated, so there is no "Good" or "Outstanding" to chase. CQC reaches a judgement of "regulations met" or "not all regulations met" for each key question it looks at.

I sat my own CQC interview recently - around 75 minutes on a video call - and two of the questions caught me off guard. This guide covers how CQC assesses dental practices right now, what changes at the end of 2026, and the questions practice managers are asked most often, with a prep checklist you can work through this week.

How CQC assesses dental practices in 2027

CQC assesses dental practices under its Single Assessment Framework, introduced in late 2023. The framework keeps the five key questions - Safe, Effective, Caring, Responsive and Well-led - and replaced the old key lines of enquiry (KLOEs) with 34 quality statements.

Dental inspections use only seven of those 34 statements: three under Safe (safe and effective staffing, safe environments, and infection prevention and control), and one for each of the other four key questions. Compliance providers commonly map those four to evidence-based care and treatment, kindness and dignity, equity in access, and governance - confirm against the "what we looked at" section of a recent CQC dental report before you build your evidence folders around them.

The scale matters for your planning. CQC's own review of the framework reports around 11,500 registered dental locations, around 33 inspectors, an aim of inspecting roughly 10% of practices a year, and around 85% of practices found compliant. Put plainly: your practice may not be inspected for years, and you will get little warning when it is. Readiness has to be a standing state, not a sprint.

The fundamental standards behind the other 27 quality statements still apply in full. CQC simply does not use those statements to structure a dental inspection.

Are dental practices rated by CQC?

No. Dental practices are not rated by CQC: primary dental care is exempt from CQC's legal duty to rate, so there are no scores for key questions or quality statements and no overall rating. For each quality statement it looks at, CQC decides whether the practice complies with the linked regulations, and it still publishes a report.

That changes how you prepare. You are not performing for a grade. You are demonstrating that nothing is missing - and the inspector's job is to find the gap.

What changes at the end of 2026

CQC published four draft sector frameworks on 24 March 2026, following its Better Regulation, Better Care consultation, and implementation is expected at the end of 2026. Dental sits within the primary care and community services framework. The drafts replace quality statements with KLOEs framed as structured questions, add rating characteristics, and remove scoring.

Feedback on the drafts closed on 12 June 2026, and CQC piloted the new approach from June to October. Until implementation, CQC has told providers to keep following the current published guidance - so everything above still applies to an inspection booked today.

Two things are worth watching. First, the draft primary care framework contains 26 KLOEs, and CQC has not yet confirmed which of them will apply to dental practices. Second, the fundamental standards - Regulations 8 to 20A of the 2014 Regulations - are not changing at all. If your evidence is organised by the five key questions, the new framework means re-sorting it, not starting again. I will update this guide within two weeks of implementation.

What happens in a CQC dental interview

Most dental assessments include a structured conversation with the registered manager, often with the principal dentist alongside, either on site or by video call. Mine ran to about 75 minutes on video: the inspector works topic by topic, and every answer invites the same follow-up - "how do you know?" Expect to share documents by screen share as you go.

Know which kind of interview you are in before it starts. A registration ("fit person") interview happens when a new provider or registered manager applies, and tests whether you understand your legal responsibilities and your statement of purpose. An assessment interview is part of an inspection of an existing practice, and tests whether your systems actually work - the inspector will usually sample your records to check. The topics overlap heavily; the evidence expected does not.

The questions CQC asks, grouped by key question

Our full question bank holds 34 questions with model answers, built from a real interview and CQC's dental mythbusters. Grouped by key question:

• Safe: a patient collapses - talk me through it; the ABCDE approach; emergency drugs and how you know they are in date; safeguarding referral routes; needlestick protocol; daily autoclave tests under HTM 01-05; written schemes of examination for pressure vessels; IRR17 versus IR(ME)R; fire risk assessment actions; Schedule 3 staff files; clinical isolation as a named risk.
• Effective: Montgomery consent; Gillick competence; the under-18 whitening trap; GDC enhanced CPD hours; NICE recall intervals; antibiotic prescribing and sepsis red flags; same-day urgent cancer referrals; referral criteria; CPD that changed your practice.
• Caring and Responsive: the complaints ladder; why "zero complaints" worries an inspector; out-of-hours arrangements; anxious patients; interpreters and consent; confidentiality in a small practice.
• Well-led: notifications to CQC; the duty of candour; regulations to know by number; business continuity when a nurse calls in sick; speaking-up routes; governance that caught something; your top three risks; your statement of purpose.

The two questions I did not see coming

Two questions in my own interview will catch most practice managers out, and each has a dedicated guide in this series.

1. "Has your team completed the Oliver McGowan training?" Learning disability and autism training appropriate to each role has been a legal requirement under Regulation 18 since 1 July 2022, and a statutory Code of Practice has applied since 6 September 2025 - reception staff included, not just clinicians. [LINK: Oliver McGowan guide]
2. "How do you recruit new members of staff? Describe your process." The inspector wants the full chain - advert, interview, Schedule 3 checks, DBS, right to work, induction, probation - and will then open a staff file to see whether you followed it. [LINK: safe recruitment guide]

The four questions behind every question

Whatever the topic, inspectors return to the same four follow-ups. Prepare these and everything else gets easier.

1. "How do you know?" End every answer with an audit, a log, a date or an external check - never with the policy alone.
2. "What's your weakest point?" Name a real gap and the action plan with a date. "Nothing comes to mind" is the failing answer.
3. "Tell me about a time something went wrong." Describe the incident, what you changed, and how you checked the change worked. A well-handled error outscores a claimed clean sheet.
4. "Who else knows this?" Inspectors ask your nurse and your receptionist the same questions. A system that lives only in your head is not a system.

What to have open on your screen

For a video interview, open these before the call and close everything else:

• Statement of purpose (current and dated) and your risk register
• Training matrix, including each person's Oliver McGowan tier and completion dates
• Two complete staff files: one recent starter and one locum
• Emergency drugs and AED check log for the last three months
• Autoclave test records, validation certificate, and your latest IPC audit with its action plan
• Radiography local rules, employer's procedures and latest image-quality audit
• Fire risk assessment with actions closed and dated
• Complaints and significant-events logs, plus any duty of candour letters
• Business continuity plan and the last two team meeting minutes

Where dental practices most often fall short

Inspection findings and CQC's own mythbusters keep pointing at the same five gaps: incomplete Schedule 3 recruitment evidence, missing DBS risk assessments, gaps in emergency kit check logs, IPC audits with no action plan, and governance that produces paperwork but no change. Every one is a closed-loop failure - something was started and never finished.

Staffing is the gap you cannot paper over on the day. If a nurse is off and no cover route exists, the diary closes, and "we'd ring around" is not a continuity plan. Write the route down and name it - ours is Airlocum, where 60% of shifts fill in under 5 minutes - so the plan you show the inspector is the plan you actually use.

Your interview-prep checklist

• Confirm whether yours is a registration interview or an assessment
• Re-read your statement of purpose and check it matches the services you offer
• Prepare one real example each of an incident, a complaint and an audit that led to change
• Check every staff file against Schedule 3 - start with your newest starter
• Check Oliver McGowan completion, by tier, for every member of staff
• Rehearse the four meta-questions out loud
• Brief your deputy, who may be asked the same questions
• Test your camera, microphone and screen share 24 hours before

The practices that pass are not the ones with the thickest policy folders. They are the ones where every claim ends in evidence and every audit ends in a change. Work through the checklist above, then take the series one topic at a time.