Kevin Lewis rediscovers the plot
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- Published: Wednesday, 29 April 2015 07:35
- Written by News Editor
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Speaking at the Dentistry exhibition Kevin Lewis, dental director of Dental Protection explained how the UK dental profession lost the plot, where we left it and how we might find it again. He said: “The tsunami of complaints, litigation and regulatory (GDC) challenge faced by UK dentists in recent years is suggestive of misplaced and unrealistic expectations coupled with an unnecessarily hostile professional environment. Contrary to the views expressed in some quarters, it does not provide evidence of falling standards in UK dentistry.”
Kevin continued: “Indeed, this relentless criticism of UK dentists and the ease with which they can find themselves challenged for the care and treatment they provide, even when it is of a perfectly reasonable quality, is unwarranted and demoralising. Furthermore it is ultimately counter-productive because it leads to a defensive, fearful climate in which the profession’s focus is on avoiding criticism and deflecting blame, rather than genuinely seeking to improve standards and offer patients the widest possible range of dental care to meet their needs.”
He also provided some background facts to set the scene and concentrate the mind:
- The average UK dentist is sued more often than dentists in any other part of the world. Indeed, more than twice as often as the average dentist in the US, and 60% more often than dentists in California, Florida and New York State.
- The average UK general dental practitioner is 3-3½ times more likely to be sued than the average UK general medical practitioner.
- The likelihood of a UK dentist facing some kind of regulatory challenge (ie by the GDC) is much greater than for UK medical practitioners, any other kind of registered healthcare professional in the UK or any other dentist, anywhere else in the world
- In addition to actual litigation (claims) or complaints to the GDC investigated through its Fitness to Practise procedures, there has also been a relentless increase in other kinds of complaint, raised in a variety of ways to a range of different bodies.
- Add the CQC (and the other equivalent Premises and Facilities Inspectorates for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland), plus the well-known voracious appetite of the British tabloid media, and one has a dental professional environment quite unlike anything that exists anywhere else in the world.
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