Setting standards for the dental team is one of the ways we achieve our primary purpose to protect patient safety and maintain public confidence in dental professionals.

We provide guidance on the standards too, and we’ve recently consulted on improvements to guidance on scope of practice, indemnity and insurance and what to report to us. Feedback on these consultations has been invaluable and raised important questions about what dental professionals need and how prescriptive standards and guidance should be.

The current Standards for the Dental Team are 10 years old but, before we start updating them, we want to have a conversation with the dental professionals stakeholders and patients about the best way to provide standards and guidance for the dental team.

We want to work with stakeholders to find the right model, pace, information and support required to do this well – before we take any steps towards it.

From September 2023, we’ll be holding a series of engagement events to invite dental professionals, stakeholders and the public to share their views on new or better ways to provide standards and guidance.

These online webinars will explore:

• The goals that refreshed or new guidance should achieve
• The benefits and challenges of the current Standards of the Dental Team
• A potential new model of guidance centred around principles of professionalism
• Any other potential alternative models to consider
• What would be needed to make sure that moving to any new model would be a success

In addition to the webinars, stakeholders can send us their feedback through the website, open until January 2024.