Key Dates
Key Contacts
Tel: 0141 225 6864
Katy Bullock, Project Officer
0141 225 6898
Project Aims and Objectives
The draft standards have been developed jointly by the National Care Standards Committee (NCSC), on behalf of Scottish Ministers, and by NHS Quality Improvement Scotland (NHS QIS). They propose standards for NHS primary care dental services and all private dental services provided by registered dental practitioners.
Most dentists in Scotland offer NHS dental care, along with varying amounts of private dentistry. The number of wholly private practices and wholly NHS practices in Scotland is small.
The standards apply to dental care regardless of where it is provided and do not deal with issues of availability of NHS dental care in Scotland.
Project History
Two different bodies are responsible for setting standards for NHS and private dentistry. For the NHS it is NHS Quality Improvement Scotland (NHS QIS) and for the private sector it is the National Care Standards Committee (NCSC) on behalf of Scottish Ministers.
At first, the two bodies worked separately and developed draft standards for dental services in their own sector. Most dental practices in Scotland provide both NHS and private dental services ('mixed practices'), so it was decided to develop a set of standards applying to both NHS and private dental services.
The set of draft standards for NHS and private dental services brings together the previous work and the different principles and approaches applied by each body to its work.
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