Condition
Periodontal disease negligence expert reports
Independent opinion on whether gum disease was screened for, diagnosed and treated to the standard the records should show.
Breach of duty
The standard the dentist is judged against
Periodontal claims are unusual among dental claims: the standard is documented, and the records either show it was met or they do not.
The British Society of Periodontology’s Basic Periodontal Examination is the accepted minimum standard for initial periodontal assessment. A raised score calls for fuller charting and radiographs rather than observation.
Where the notes across years of routine attendance contain no periodontal screening at all, breach is usually straightforward.
Clinical evidence
How the failure happens
No screening
No BPE recorded across a course of care.
A raised score not acted on
Screening performed, and nothing followed.
No radiographs
Bone loss never assessed.
Treatment without diagnosis
Scaling delivered indefinitely in place of a diagnosis and a treatment plan.
No referral
Disease progressing beyond what general practice can manage, with no specialist referral.
No warning to the patient
The patient never told that their gums were deteriorating.
The counterfactual
Causation, and where the claim fails
Breach is often the easier limb here. Causation turns on what competent care would have preserved. The expert must work backwards from the records: what the bone levels were when the failure began, what treatment would have arrested the disease, and which teeth would probably still be present today.
Periodontitis is progressive but variable, and a claimant with poor plaque control or a heavy smoking history may have lost the teeth in any event. That is where these claims are contested.
The damages are usually prosthetic — the lifetime cost of replacing teeth that competent care would have kept.
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01
What were the bone levels when the failure began?
The periodontal baseline the records establish.
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02
What would competent care have arrested?
The treatment that would probably have controlled the disease.
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03
Which teeth would probably still be present?
The teeth competent care would have preserved.
Discipline-led matching
The expert we match
Specialist in periodontics
Often appropriate where specialist periodontal management, or bone-level interpretation across years of radiographs, is in issue.
General dental practitioner
Where the question is what a general dental practitioner should have done, a GDP with periodontal medico-legal experience is the correct author.
Where the instruction crosses those boundaries, we identify the required disciplines before you instruct and provide the proposed CV.
Expert evidence
The report you receive
Why solicitors instruct us
A periodontal claim is won or lost on the records.
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01
The records decide it
A periodontal claim is won or lost on the charting, the radiographs and the recall history. Our experts read them before offering a view on merits.
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02
The right periodontal opinion
Bone-level interpretation across years of radiographs is specialist work.
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03
Keep one case-management contact
A named case manager coordinates the instruction, the proposed CV and the agreed report scope, and tells you where it stands before you ask.
Frequently asked questions
Assessing a periodontal claim.
Practical questions for solicitors reviewing a periodontal instruction.
Where the dentist failed to screen for, diagnose or treat the disease, and teeth were lost that competent care would have preserved.
A screening examination of the gums, scored by sextant. It indicates the further examination and treatment needed. It is not itself a diagnosis.
It is relevant to causation and to contributory negligence, and it is a point defendants take. It rarely disposes of a claim on its own.
As far as the course of care runs. Periodontal claims are built on the pattern across years, not on one appointment.
Discuss an instruction
Have a periodontal claim to assess?
Tell us the clinical issue and a case manager will send a suitable CV and a fixed quote.
Submit an Enquiry for Dental Expert CVs