In addition to its many other services to the dental profession, Dental Protection has a long history of providing innovative educational material. The publication of the Annual Review 2014 continues that tradition. What’s more, the digital version of the publication is available with three hours online CPD.

Dental Protection has called on the Government to implement a package of legal reforms to help tackle the rising cost of clinical negligence, and the challenging claims environment for dentists.

A highly intensive interpersonal skills training programme which greatly enhances dentist-patient communication and creates significant behavioural and attitudinal change.

The new NHS Scotland Complaints Handling Procedure places an emphasis on empowering all staff to resolve issues “on-the-spot” where they can. Primary Care service providers also have to make sure they record all complaints, even those resolved efficiently. Sara Dawson explores all the changes below

Dental Protection has welcomed the General Dental Council’s (GDC) commitment to provide greater clarity on how and when it will use its formal Fitness to Practise enforcement powers as a solution to managing serious risk to patients.

Saleem Hasanally is in his third year post-qualification after choosing to do his vocational training over two years at Porth Dental Teaching Unit in Wales. If you're thinking DFT is the only way, read Saleem's experience of training another way.

The key to complaints handling is a flexibility of approach. The complaints handling process should adapt to the needs of a patient and not the other way round. Although there is no single way to handle a complaint, there are some key steps that should always be considered...

Clinical photography is an area within dentistry that is becoming increasingly popular amongst clinicians wanting to capture cosmetic craftsmanship to those wanting to document information to monitor dental disease such as erosion.

Associate Dentolegal Adviser Simrit Ryatt explains the help Dental Protection can offer when you receive a letter of complaint.

Associate Dentolegal Adviser Simrit Ryatt outlines the key components of a response to letter of complaint. She offers tips on the wording of your letter to maintain a professional and effective relationship with the patient making the complaint.

Receiving a letter of complaint from a patient can often come as a shock, and can be a stressful and difficult time for a dental professional.

Hannah qualified from Peninsula Dental School in 2015 and went on to complete her DF1 on the Oxford Scheme. Today she is a DCT1 in Paediatrics and Oral Surgery at Birmingham Dental Hospital, but she found the choice of applying for DCT a difficult one to make.

A Judicial Review brought by Dental Protection has found that the General Dental Council (GDC) was wrong to deny a dental practitioner the right of review after receiving an unpublished warning.1

In November 2015, the GDC changed the rules on registration to ensure that all Dentists and Dental Care Professionals (DCPs) have a statutory requirement to maintain adequate and appropriate indemnity when practising dentistry in the UK. This has been a professional requirement for some time. Paragraph 1.8 of the GDC Standards document makes it clear that all registrants must have appropriate arrangements in place for patients to seek compensation if they have suffered harm. The GDC goes on to define such arrangements as being appropriate insurance or indemnity.

The Health and Social Care (Disciplinary Procedures) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2016 currently govern disciplinary proceedings in relation to some family health practitioners, including some family health practitioners.

It’s fair to say that nobody likes to receive complaints, but our ability to respond to them constructively, and to learn any lessons that they provide for us, goes to the very heart of professionalism especially working in dental practice.