Patient confidence in dental care and regulation is high
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- Published: Friday, 30 May 2014 09:10
- Written by News Editor
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The General Dental Council has announced that a new survey of more than 1600 patients and members of the public has revealed that 96% of those who visit the dentist once a year are satisfied with the dental care or treatment that they receive. Overall satisfaction with dental care is high, though patients are less confident that poor treatment and care is dealt with effectively.
Patients were asked about whether dental professionals were treating them in line with some of the standards that appear in the 'Standards for the Dental Team'. More than three in four patients (78%) say that their dental professional gave them enough information about treatment options during their last visit. However, focus groups carried out as part of the research revealed that some patients felt they didn't have a good understanding of dental treatments, which made it difficult to judge the quality. Only 41% agreed that there had been a simple price list on display and only 34% agreed that there had been information stating that dental professionals were regulated by the GDC on display.
Almost nine out of ten members of the public (86%) believe that dentists are professionally regulated; two thirds believe that regulation of dental professionals is very important and nearly eight out of ten (77%) are confident that the GDC regulates dental professionals effectively. However there was less certainty about whether appropriate action would be taken by a regulator to tackle poor care or serious wrongdoing. 39 percent of people say they are not confident that appropriate action would be taken to deal with patients being overcharged for their dental treatment, or poor dental care being delivered to residents in a care home (40%) or disabled patients (38%).
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