An accredited dental practice

Victorian Dental Group voluntarily elected to undergo an audit of its practice, and was awarded immediate full accreditation against the six National Safety and Quality Health Service (NSQHS) Standards as they apply to dentistry, by Quality Innovation Performance Limited (QIP).

QIP is an approved accrediting agency of the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care.

What accreditation actually is

It is worth being clear about the distinction, because the words get used loosely.

Registration is mandatory. Every dentist and oral health therapist in Australia must be registered with the Dental Board of Australia through Ahpra to practise at all. It applies to the individual practitioner.

Accreditation is different. It is voluntary, it applies to the practice rather than the person, and it involves an external assessor examining how the clinic actually operates — its systems, its records, its sterilisation processes, its handling of emergencies and complaints — against a published national standard.

A practice can be entirely lawful and staffed by properly registered practitioners without ever being accredited. Choosing to be assessed means inviting someone in to check the parts of a practice that patients cannot see for themselves.

The six standards

1. Clinical Governance. That the practice has systems for safety and quality, not just good intentions — defined responsibilities, policies, incident reporting, and a process for acting when something goes wrong.

2. Partnering with Consumers. That patients are given the information needed to make genuine decisions about their own care, including risks, options and costs, and that informed consent is real rather than a signature.

3. Preventing and Controlling Infection. Sterilisation, instrument tracking, single-use items, water line management, and documented processes that are audited rather than assumed. In dentistry this is the standard patients most want confidence in and can least verify themselves.

4. Medication Safety. Safe prescribing, storage and administration, accurate medication histories, and recorded allergies and adverse reactions.

5. Comprehensive Care. That care is planned around the whole person and their medical history, with risks identified and managed — including the medical conditions and medications that change how dental treatment must be delivered.

6. Communicating for Safety. That critical information moves reliably between practitioners, between appointments, and at referral — correct patient, correct tooth, correct procedure, with nothing lost in handover.

Infection control, in detail

This is the standard most people care about, and the one hardest to see from the chair. What accredited practice requires of every reusable instrument:

1. Pre-cleaning immediately after use, so nothing dries on
2. Mechanical cleaning in an ultrasonic bath or washer-disinfector, which is more reliable than hand scrubbing and safer for staff
3. Inspection, item by item, under good light — an instrument that is not visibly clean cannot be sterilised
4. Packaging into sealed pouches carrying a chemical indicator that changes colour only if the sterilising conditions were reached
5. Steam sterilisation in an autoclave, at a validated temperature, pressure and hold time
6. Batch recording, so a given load can be linked back to the cycle data and, where required, to the patients it was used on
7. Storage that keeps packs sealed and dry until the moment of use — opened at the chair, in front of you

Alongside that: single-use items are used once and discarded, never reprocessed; dental unit waterlines are maintained and monitored; surfaces and equipment are disinfected between every patient; and the steriliser itself is tested and serviced on a schedule, with the records kept.

The indicator strip on the pouch is the one part you can check yourself. You are welcome to.

What an assessment involves

It is not a questionnaire. An assessor attends the practice and looks at how it runs: documentation and policies, sterilisation records and the tracking that links a given instrument set to a given patient, consent and treatment-plan records, medication and emergency drug management, staff training records, incident and complaint logs, and the maintenance and testing schedules for equipment.

Where something falls short, it must be corrected and evidenced before accreditation is awarded. Accreditation is then reassessed periodically, so it is a cycle rather than a certificate on the wall — and a practice can lose it.

When something goes wrong

No system prevents every adverse event, and the standards do not pretend otherwise. What they require is that incidents are recorded, reviewed, and used to change something; that patients are told openly when something has gone wrong in their care and what is being done about it; and that complaints have a defined path rather than depending on who happens to answer the phone.

In Victoria you can also raise a concern independently, with the Health Complaints Commissioner (hcc.vic.gov.au) about a service, or with Ahpra (ahpra.gov.au) about a practitioner. Neither needs our involvement or permission.

What it means for you

Accreditation is not a guarantee that nothing will ever go wrong. No credential is.

What it does mean is that an independent assessor has examined this practice against a national standard and found the systems in place — and that the practice committed to continuous improvement rather than treating compliance as a one-off exercise.

In practical terms, the things it covers are the things you would ask about if you knew to ask: how instruments are sterilised, whether your medical history is genuinely reviewed before treatment, whether you are told the risks and costs before consenting, and what happens if you have a complaint.

Things you are entitled to ask any practice

Accredited or not, these are all reasonable questions, and a well-run practice will answer them without hesitation:

• How are instruments sterilised, and how is each cycle recorded?
• Is my medical history reviewed before every course of treatment?
• Will I get the risks, the alternatives and the cost in writing before I consent?
• What happens if I have a complaint, and who handles it?
• Are your practitioners' registrations current, and can I verify them myself?

The answer to the last one is always yes — the Ahpra register is public, free, and searchable by name at ahpra.gov.au.

Credentials that are not the same thing

The word "accredited" is used loosely in dental advertising. These are all different things:

Why we did it

As a profession-led program, Private Dental Practice Accreditation aims to promote continuous quality improvement, implement best-practice systems and processes, and reduce clinical and business risk while enhancing consumer confidence. It also supports teams to build a culture of quality, engaging staff in improving day-to-day operations.

We pursued it because we would rather be measured against an external standard than assert our own. Any practice can describe itself as careful. Accreditation is one of the few ways a patient can see that someone independent has checked.

Questions we are asked

Does accreditation make treatment more expensive? It has a cost to the practice, in fees and in the time spent on systems and documentation. Our fees are set on the treatment, not on the credential.

Do all dental practices have it? No. It is voluntary, and many practices are not accredited. That does not make them unsafe — it means this particular check has not been carried out.

Can accreditation be lost? Yes. It is reassessed on a cycle and is conditional on continuing to meet the standards.

How do I check a practitioner's registration? Search their name on the public register at ahpra.gov.au. It shows registration type, any conditions, and whether it is current. It takes under a minute and costs nothing.

Is accreditation the same as being a health fund preferred provider? No, and the two are often confused. A preferred provider arrangement is a commercial agreement between a practice and an insurer about fees. Accreditation is an independent assessment against a national safety and quality standard.

Does it mean the dentistry is better? It means the systems around the dentistry have been independently checked. Clinical judgement is a separate thing, and no accreditation scheme measures it directly.

Can I see the sterilisation records? Ask. Practices keep them precisely so they can be produced.

Does accreditation cover the practitioners' qualifications? Only that the practice verifies and monitors registration. The qualifications themselves sit on the Ahpra register, which you can check yourself.

Related

Our approach to evidence, transparency and informed choice is set out on our clinic page, and the practitioners providing your care are on our team page. Every practitioner here is registered with the Dental Board of Australia, and none holds specialist registration.

Victorian Dental Group — 291 Wattletree Road, Malvern East VIC 3145 · (03) 9088 5808 · Monday to Friday, 8:00am–5:00pm · book online

This page is general information and does not replace advice from a registered dental practitioner about your own circumstances. Please see our Disclaimer.