Patient safety in dentistry: development of a candidate 'never event' list for primary care (May 2017)

Summary

The aim of this study, published by the British Dentistry Journal, was to identify and develop a candidate 'never event' list for primary care dentistry.

Content

The study achieved its aim of beginning a consensus building process to develop and validate a preliminary list of candidate never events for primary care dentistry. Consensus was achieved on a list of nine candidate never events covering a range of potentially serious system wide issues, most of which relate to patient safety checking procedures.

At the time of publication, this was one of a small number of dental studies with an explicit focus in terms of developing a tool to help improve patient safety related work practices and performance in this setting, potentially reducing risks to practitioners and practices alike.