Dental Negligence Claims: How Can a Dental Expert Witness Help Solicitors Build a Stronger Case?
Take a typical file. A client had a lower wisdom tooth taken out at a high street practice, and fourteen months later part of her lip is still numb. She is certain something went wrong. The notes describe the extraction as uneventful, and there’s one radiograph in the bundle, taken six weeks before the procedure.
Nothing in that paperwork tells you whether the claim is any good. Whether a reasonable dentist would have referred her to an oral surgeon, and whether the risk of nerve injury was properly explained, are clinical judgments, and they are the part a solicitor cannot make. A dentist expert witness can.
What the court wants to know
The legal test will be familiar from other clinical negligence work. Was the dentist’s care something a responsible body of dental opinion would have accepted, and does that opinion survive logical scrutiny? Consent has its own standard: patients should be told about material risks and sensible alternatives, so a signed form is not the end of the matter if nerve damage was never mentioned. Dental law and negligence claims run on these same principles, but they apply them to treatment most lawyers have only ever seen from the patient’s side of the chair.
What the expert reads for
Back to the lip. The expert will want the full records, every radiograph and the consent paperwork, and will usually examine the claimant too. Small things matter in a file like this: how close the tooth sat to the nerve canal on that single image, and whether the notes mention it at all. Then comes the bigger question of whether a second view or a referral was the normal step, and what the claimant would have decided if she had known the risk.
Causation is a separate matter. Even if the care was poor, did it cause the numbness, and is it likely to improve? Prognosis and the cost of remedial treatment sometimes need a second specialist, and the first expert can say so.
Experts also deliver bad news. An honest opinion that the care was reasonable is unwelcome, but it costs very little before proceedings are issued and a great deal afterwards.
How common are these claims?
The best public figures come from NHS Resolution data analysed by Medical Negligence Assist and reported in The Dentist. Between 2019 and 2024, 321 dental claims and incidents were lodged against NHS trusts in England. Of those, 248 settled, with compensation of about £4.26 million. Dental damage was the most common injury, accounting for 95 settled claims worth around £1.29 million. These numbers cover NHS trusts only, so they won’t capture claims against general or private practices.
Special care dentistry
Special care dentistry looks after patients for whom ordinary treatment is difficult, such as people with learning disabilities, dementia, complex medical conditions or severe anxiety. Claims here tend to turn on capacity and best interests, and on whether sedation or general anaesthesia was the right call.
A general dental practitioner can comment on the dentistry, but may have little experience of treating a patient who cannot consent, or whose carer is making decisions for them. A special care dentistry expert witness will have done that work for years, and will know what reasonable care looks like when the usual approach is not available.
Picking the right expert
Match the specialism to the allegation first. A failed root canal wants an endodontist’s eye, and the nerve injury above wants an oral surgeon or a general dentist with plenty of surgical extractions behind them. Beyond that, check the GDC register for current registration and any conditions, confirm the person is still treating patients, and ask whether anyone connected to the dentist being criticised could create a conflict.
A few questions are worth asking on the first call:
How many procedures like this did you carry out last year?
Have you written reports for court before, and how did they go?
Can you meet the timetable we have got?
Is any part of the allegation outside your area?
Timing and process
Instruct early. Limitation in most clinical negligence claims is three years from the treatment or from when the patient first knew something was wrong, which is less time than it sounds once records have been requested and chased. A breach and causation report also shapes the letter of claim.
Under CPR Part 35 the expert’s duty is to the court, whoever is paying. If the other side instructs a dental expert too, the two normally meet and produce a joint statement setting out where they agree and where they do not.
If you are a dentist thinking about expert work
In practice you treat patients. As an expert you give an independent opinion on someone else’s treatment, and it may count against a colleague. You will need to write plainly for readers with no dental training and accept that every assumption in your report will be tested. It is also worth checking whether your indemnity arrangements cover expert witness work.
Expert Witness Gateway lists dental specialists by discipline and experience, so dental negligence solicitors can look for someone whose background fits the treatment in question.