Book Review

Given that a core function of the Faculty of General Dental Practice (UK) has been, and is, to raise the standard of care delivered to patients, a logical progression from that is actually to discuss and then decide standards which may be applied in the practice of dentistry. They first did this in 2006 by publishing the first edition of Standards in Dentistry, a text which has provided well respected guidelines for the dental profession but, as time marches on and dentistry changes, a new edition was considered necessary. This second edition is a complete rewrite of the earlier publication but builds upon the successful structure of the previous publication, incorporating the various Faculty publications since 2006.

There are many reasons to adopt standards, for example, to ensure good patient care and to avoid adverse dento-legal issues, and perhaps also for the practitioner personally to be satisfied that (s)he is demonstrating high standards. Chapter One defines guidelines and standards, adopting and explaining a framework of Aspirational, Basic and Conditional for the following sections. Clinical standards for a wide variety of situations (such as Consultation and Diagnosis, Paediatric Dentistry, Management of acute pain) are covered in Chapter 2 in the ABC format. Guidelines for structure and process in dental practice form a comprehensive basis for chapter 3, while Chapter 4, on ‘Keeping Up to Date’ provides details of publications, search engines and social media that can help. The extensive list of appendices in Section A1 is a most valuable part of the publication, providing, as it does, guidelines and standards in all areas of dentistry, published by a variety of authorities in their respective fields.