Expert discipline
Paediatric dentistry expert witnesses
Opinion on the dental care of children, and on injury to a dentition that has not finished developing.
What the discipline covers
Children’s claims are not adult claims scaled down.
The speciality
Paediatric dentist
A dentist on the GDC’s paediatric dentistry specialist list, concerned with the dental care of children and young people, and with a dentition that is still developing.
Common instructionTreatment of children, and damage to the developing dentition.
Defined term
Dental neglect
A distinct area on which solicitors instruct on both sides. Whether a child was neglected in the wider sense is not a dental question.
Common instructionWhether the dental picture met the BSPD definition of dental neglect.
Instruction scope
What these experts report on.
Treatment of children
The standard of care in general and specialist practice for a child patient.
Damage to the developing dentition
Harm to the permanent teeth after trauma or infection of the primary teeth.
Dental neglect
Whether the dental picture met the definition, and how the dental team responded.
Injury to a child’s mouth
In family and criminal proceedings, where the interpretation of injury is in issue.
Cost of future care
A costed schedule across a child claimant’s expected lifetime.
How we match
The discipline that treated the child, and the one that rebuilds the mouth.
A paediatric dentist where the patient was a child and the treatment or the neglect is in issue. A restorative expert where the question is the lifetime cost of rebuilding the dentition.
Where injury to a child’s mouth arises in a safeguarding or criminal context, a forensic odontologist may be needed alongside.
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01
Child patient, treatment or neglect
Paediatric dentist
Where a child’s care or a dental neglect question is in issue.
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02
Lifetime cost of rebuilding
Restorative expert
On the schedule of treatment the child will need across a lifetime.
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03
Safeguarding or criminal context
Forensic odontologist alongside
Where the interpretation of injury to a child’s mouth is in issue.
The report you receive
The standard for a child, and the treatment they will grow into.
The standard of care
The standard expected for a child patient in the relevant setting.
The developing dentition
The effect on the permanent teeth still forming.
Treatment as the child grows
A schedule of the care the child will need over time.
Why solicitors instruct us
A child’s schedule is the longest one you will ever value.
The longest schedule
A tooth lost at eight is replaced repeatedly across a lifetime, and the expert must say how many times.
Neglect is a defined term
Our experts apply the BSPD definition of dental neglect rather than a view about the parents.
A named case manager
One point of contact coordinates the instruction, expert correspondence and delivery of the report.
FAQs
Commonly asked questions
The persistent failure to meet a child’s basic oral health needs, likely to result in serious impairment of oral or general health or development. That is the BSPD definition, and it is the one an expert should apply.
In England and Wales limitation generally runs from the claimant’s eighteenth birthday; in Scotland it runs from sixteen. Limitation is a matter for you, not for the expert.
No. The standard is that of the discipline that treated the patient.
Yes, and as single joint expert. The duty to the court is unchanged.
Discuss an instruction