Confusing variety

In any healthcare system there will be an element of expected variation and an element of unexpected variation. The variation may arise from treatment provided by different healthcare professionals or it could be in relation to the way in which services are commissioned. There may also be variation in the way in which health systems function for different professional groups. As well as variation from the health system, there may be variation in the way that regulators operate. If all dental professionals used different titles and different nomenclature, the variation may become unmanageable within the profession but more importantly patients would soon lose track of whom or what they are accessing for care.

In March 2012, the General Dental Council published guidance on ethical advertising. This guidance was aimed at dental professionals to help define parameters on how and when to advertise as well as informing those within the dental profession whether or not they can use the title specialist. The main driver for this has been to help patients make informed choices about their dental care. You may wonder whether this was necessary and perhaps as dental professionals it may not always have been so obvious, however from a patient’s perspective this was a very helpful move. Patients are now faced with the option of directly accessing a range of dental care professionals as well as a range of dental surgeons who may or may not be specialists. Patients that have visited me have often not understood the difference between clinical dental technician and prosthodontist and therefore any guidance that helps patients is certainly useful.