Standards & guidance

Standards in Dentistry is a comprehensive collection of standards and guidelines for primary dental care.

A compendium acting as a guide to personal or practice-based quality assessment, it sets out specific basic and aspirational standards covering all key areas of practice.

Antimicrobial Prescribing in Dentistry gives clear, simple and practical guidance to dentists on when to prescribe antimicrobials, what to prescribe, for how long and at what dosage.

Our printable one-page summary of the guidance, Chairside synopsis for common conditions, which summarises recommendations applicable for adult patients, is available for all dental professionals and practices to download.

The Antimicrobial Prescribing Self-Audit Tool, co-published with the British Dental Association and endorsed by Public Health England, helps dental prescribers to complete a clinical audit of their antimicrobial prescribing and management of dental infections, and to compare audited practice against the guidance.

Further resources are available in the Dental Antimicrobial Stewardship Toolkit, which was developed by the FGDP(UK), the British Dental Association and the Dental Sub-Group of Public Health England’s English surveillance programme for antimicrobial utilisation and resistance (ESPAUR).

Clinical Examination & Record-Keeping is a complete reference guide to record-keeping and examination, including history-taking, consent, confidentiality, data protection and more.

Implications of COVID-19 for the safe management of general dental practice supports dental professionals to take a risk-based, evidence-based approach to providing safe general dental care, and looking after team wellbeing according to the national COVID-19 alert level.

Dementia-Friendly Dentistry enables dental professionals to understand dementia and its implications for dental practice, and adapt their patient management and clinical decisions accordingly.

Training Standards in Implant Dentistry summarises the training that should be undertaken to carry out implant dentistry safely, and the standards which should be met by training courses. It should be read in conjunction with Mentoring in Implant Dentistry: Good Practice Guidelines.

Mentoring in Implant Dentistry: Good Practice Guidelines describes the nature of mentoring which should be undertaken in order to safely carry out implant dentistry following completion of an appropriate training course, and complements Training Standards in Implant Dentistry.

Selection Criteria for Dental Radiography is the leading guideline on indications for radiographic investigation, covering treatment planning and monitoring, ionising radiation regulations and best practice.

Guidance notes for dental practitioners on the safe use of X-ray equipment sets standards in line with the Ionising Radiation Regulations 2017 (IRR17) and Ionising Radiation (Medical Exposure) Regulations 2017 (IRMER17).

An Introduction to Research for Primary Dental Care Clinicians introduces the principles of research methodology, discusses the relevance of research to primary dental care, and provides an overview of the different stages in a research project.