Dental Negligence Compensation
Working towards a better solution

Many dentists now work as private practices or in conjunction with a larger private healthcare scheme. This would entail claiming to be compensated from the individual practice's personal insurance or applying for a payout from the general organisation in charge. If you were not a private client of the dentist you are claiming to be negligent then you will generally be compensated by the NHS for any malpractice from a medical practitioner that receives his fees or salary from the national health service.

Dental Negligence claims are generally easier to pursue and to settle in the client's favour due to the limited range of things that can actually go wrong during an oral procedure. This would lend to the notion that many mistakes that are made are not the result of unforeseeable errors but simple carelessness. Most procedures in dentistry are tried and tested long before they reach the actual dentist's chair - this would be true for the equipment, the drugs used and the techniques. Any injury caused (not always to the teeth themselves) during dentistry would therefore most likely be the result of inattention on the part of the dentist rather than any external factors.

Making a dental negligence claim therefore is, as a rule of thumb, far easier than claiming compensation from a doctor, physician, nurse, hospital etc. as the large majority of dentists are self-insured and insurance companies are faster to deal with than the NHS's own compensation scheme. Also, the actual evidence on whether a dentist was in fact negligent is more clear-cut in most instances. If you have been injured during a dental procedure remember that your health is the most important thing and turning down corrective procedures because you want to make a claim first is not really in your best long-term health interests. All medical procedures, including any corrective procedures, are well documented and (as far as we are aware) there is no group of people dedicated to covering up medical mistakes and deleting your records.


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