26 Oct 2005 - "Five key questions"

Before you take to the dental chair and open wide, ask yourself five key questions. That is the advice of the General Dental Council (GDC), which is to launch a new Dental Complaints Service next year to help resolve complaints about private dental work. Currently, there is an NHS dental complaints scheme, but not one for private patients.

Clarifying in advance whether your dental treatment is NHS or private, its likely cost, what it will consist of, alternative treatment options, and whether you know all you need to know, could help you to avoid the inconvenience of making a complaint afterwards.

Five key questions are included in a new leaflet for all dental patients, entitled ‘Licensed to Practise' . Before you agree to any dental treatment, ask yourself:
Do I know whether the planned treatment will be provided under the NHS or privately?

Do I know the likely cost?

Do I understand what the planned treatment involves? Ask for a written treatment plan, if you would find that helpful.

Has my dental professional told me if there are other treatment options?

Do I have all the information I need to make an informed decision?

Finally, if you have any concerns, ask your dental professional for more information.

Gordon Miles, Director of the Dental Complaints Service, said:
“Prevention is better than cure, when it comes to dental complaints as much as dental hygiene. Asking yourself these five key questions in advance of a course of dental treatment could help to avoid the need to make a complaint afterwards.

“We’ll be encouraging dissatisfied dental patients to use their dental practice’s own complaints scheme initially – but how much better it would be if checking a few key facts first meant you didn’t feel you needed to complain at all.”

The General Dental Council is currently seeking volunteers – members of the public and dental professionals – to sit on regional panels and hear complaints that can’t otherwise be resolved. If a patient is still dissatisfied after using their practice’s complaints scheme, then Dental Complaints Service advisers will try to resolve complaints informally.

Only if the advisers can’t resolve a complaint with the patient and the dental professional concerned will it go to a panel of volunteers. The aim of the service is to resolve complaints informally – as fairly, efficiently, transparently and quickly as possible.

Volunteers must be fair and open minded; able to question and weigh up the different sides of an issue; and be able to express themselves clearly and confidently. To find out more about volunteering to join a complaints panel, call 08456 120 540 (local rate) or visit the General Dental Council’s website www.gdc-uk.org and follow the links.

Ends

For media enquiries, contact Mike Hutchinson on 020 7624 6257 or 07760 155 216, or email mike.hutchinson@dentalcomplaints.org.uk.
Gordon Miles and Derek Prentice, who chairs the GDC Working Group that is setting up the Dental Complaints Service, are available for interview.

Notes to editors:
1. The Dental Complaints Service is being set up by the General Dental Council to help resolve complaints by patients about private dental work. It aims to do this fairly, efficiently, transparently and quickly. NHS patients are covered by a different scheme. The GDC is setting up the Dental Complaints Service in line with its guidance to dental care professionals to “put patients’ interests first and act to protect them”. The complaints service will be funded by the GDC, which is in turn funded by registered dental professionals.
2. The GDC is the organisation which regulates dental professionals in the UK. All dentists, dental hygienists and dental therapists must be registered with the GDC to practise in the UK - whether they work in the NHS, private practice or any other form of practice. During 2006, the GDC will also start to register other dental professionals including dental nurses and dental technicians.

The GDC sets and monitors the standards dental professionals must follow throughout their working lives. It does this by:
registering qualified professionals,
setting high standards of dental practice and behaviour,
quality-assuring dental education,
making sure dental professionals keep up to date, and
helping if you want to make a complaint about a dental professional.

3. ‘Licensed to Practise – what you can expect from your dental professional' can be downloaded from the publications section of the GDC website at www.gdc-uk.org, where you will find a full list of GDC publications. For a hard copy, call 020 7887 3824 or email communications@gdc-uk.org.