Dental guarantees

Guarantees for dental work are topical in the light of new GDC guidance, Standards for the Dental Team. A guarantee in this context is a contractual agreement with a patient which provides them with recourse in the event that treatment fails. For example, a basic guarantee might be that lab work or a filling would be replaced free of charge if it fails within two years of the date of treatment.

The GDC Guidance on guarantees states that practitioners should:

? tell their patients whether treatment is guaranteed;

? if a guarantee is provided, tell their patients exactly what the guarantee covers, and tell them about any exclusions that apply;

? make clear any circumstances under which the treatment is not guaranteed (for example, if a problem arises through lack of care on the patient’s part).

The GDC guidance does not make it mandatory for a guarantee to actually be given, although the recent report into the dental market by the Office of Fair Trading says that they see no reason why a one year guarantee should not be implemented across the whole of the dental market.