Extraction error

Dental professionals should pause for thought before they pull out a patient’s tooth, the Dental Defence Union (DDU) warns. 

In the six year period between 2006 and 2011, the DDU received 138 claims and opened 109 advice files involving allegations of erroneous extractions. The number of files received in 2011 was nearly three times that in 2006 (57 compared with 21). The most common allegations were:

the wrong tooth was extracted because the dentist had misread the chart or referral letter;

the dentist failed to extract the tooth causing pain;

the extraction was unnecessary and the tooth could have been saved; and

the dentist had not properly obtained consent from the patient. 

The cost of settling 56 claims was over £413,000, an average of more than £7,300 per claim plus legal fees. Of the remaining claims, 31 were discontinued, closed or found to be outside the three-year statutory limitation period, and 51 remained active at the end of the period. The highest payout was for a patient who had an incisor removed rather than a pre-molar. The patient received over £23,000 compensation, plus legal costs.