Standards in Dentistry

The completely revised third edition of Standards in Dentistry is a comprehensive manual bringing together contemporary standards and guidelines for primary care dentistry.

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

• consultation and diagnosis
• making and receiving referrals
• paediatric dentistry
• orthodontics
• management of acute pain
• periodontics
• direct (plastic), coronal and root surface restorations
• indirect coronal restorations (crowns, bridges, onlays, veneers)
• endodontics
• removable partial dentures
• complete dentures
• oral medicine
• minor oral surgery
• implant dentistry
• management of dental trauma
• aesthetic dentistry
• digital dentistry 

The standards are focussed on practitioner processes rather than treatment outcomes, and the book adopts the College’s ‘Aspirational’, ‘Basic’, ‘Conditional’ (ABC) notation for the grading of recommendations.

Standards in Dentistry also summarises over 100 standards, guidelines and advisory publications by the College and 50 other national and international bodies, and signposts to other resources, organisations and legislation relating to the above areas and to:

• antimicrobial prescribing and stewardship
• clinical governance
• emergency dental care
• environmental sustainability
• equality, diversity and inclusion
• examination and record-keeping
• infection control
• medical emergencies
• medications management
• mental health and wellbeing
• oral health
• pathology
• patient information
• practice management
• prevention
• radiography
• research governance
• restorative dentistry
• risk management & communication
• sedation
• special care dentistry
• staff training

The first edition of Standards in Dentistry, published by the former Faculty of General Dental Practice (FGDP) in 2006, combined the functions of two previous FGDP publications, Self-Assessment Manual and Standards (SAMS) and Guidelines for Structure and Process in Dental Practice. The second edition was published by FGDP from 2018-2021 and by the College from 2021-2025.

Standards in Dentistry is available to view free of charge below for the benefit of the whole dental profession and all dental patients. College members will need to be logged in. Users who are not members of the College will need to be logged into their College Subscriber account; if you are not yet a College Subscriber, you can register for free via the link at the top of this page.

College members can also save Standards in Dentistry to their devices as a PDF for personal use via the download button below, giving access to search, text-select and print functionality. If you are a member and cannot see the download button, make sure you are logged in and then refresh this page.

If you are not yet a member of the College and would like to enjoy these additional benefits while supporting the maintenance of Standards in Dentistry, join us.