Components to Denplan Excel

Component 1 – Denplan Quality Programme

The Denplan Quality Programme is a compulsory component of the Denplan Excel Accreditation Programme and is designed to encourage on-going professional and practice development in the face of changing clinical governance regulation and patient expectations.

To maintain Denplan Excel Accreditation, dentists are revalidated every 18 months by trained advisors. To help maintain clinical governance compliance and best practice, at the first and then at every third assessment, advisors will undertake a more detailed Practice Assessment with continued support from Denplan in helping you meet and exceed clinical governance standards. The Denplan Quality Programme is based on a list of ‘Essential’ items or procedures with which your practice must comply. Some of these are legal or statutory requirements, while others are considered by professional consensus to form part of good practice recommendations.

‘Essential’ items cover:

  • Infection control and decontamination
  • The Environmental Protection Act
  • Ionising Radiation Regulations
  • Management of patient collapse
  • Record keeping
  • Complaints handling
  • Professional indemnity
  • Post-graduate education
  • Out-of-hours emergency cover

Denplan Quality Programme: benefits for your practice

  • Compliance with standards of clinical governance and assurance that you are meeting or exceeding statutory requirements
  • Professional support to help you practise in line with up-to-date legislation and professional best practice
  • A structured, proven programme of continual improvement and monitoring

Denplan Quality Programme: benefits for your patients

  • Reassures them that their dentist is practising in line with current good practice recommendations and is complying with current legislation
  • Reassures them that their dentist is committed to quality care and continuous improvement, and has their best interests at heart

Component 2 – The Business Development Patient Survey

Measuring patient satisfaction is a key tool in the continuing success of a dental practice. This is why an important part of Denplan Excel Accreditation is the patient survey conducted every three years.

You will issue your patients (including NHS and private patients) with questionnaires asking them to rate their satisfaction level with various aspects of their oral care and quality of the service they receive. The surveys – the largest undertaken in the private dental sector – are analysed and the results are sent to you together with a national benchmark score for comparative purposes.

Research has shown high response rates for feedback gathered this way, and the questionnaire has been carefully designed to provide you with concise, useful information about how your patients feel about the practice, including verbatim comments.

The process is undertaken in accordance with the Data Protection Act and individual patient responses are confidential. However, aggregated results from your patient survey will be seen by your Denplan Consultant, unless you would prefer them to remain private; in which case, you will need to ‘opt out’ by notifying your Consultant. If you wish, Denplan can help you analyse your results and support you in implementing improvements within your practice.

Patient surveys: benefits for your practice
  • Survey results are included - bringing you significant cost savings (typically an independent survey costs £2,000 + VAT at the prevailing rate
  • Provides standardised, objective monitoring data
  • Relieves you of the administrative burden of preparing questionnaires and analysing results
  • Allows you to plan specific business improvements based on patient feedback, including potential new income streams, allowing you to meet your business objectives
  • Increases patient involvement and loyalty to your practice
  • Provides a benchmark against which to measure improvements for your practice
  • Enables you to share good practice by comparing your results against a national reference sample (or benchmark) of Denplan Excel practices
  • Allows you to survey private and NHS patients at no extra cost
Patient surveys: benefits for your patients
  • Provides a confidential way to give feedback on the care they receive
  • Reassures them that their views are heard, valued and acted upon

Component 3 – Patient Information

Patient Information (PI)

Patient Information supports the practice team in clearly explaining the care and treatment they are providing to patients, including specific information for children and their parents. It is an important tool for enhancing the patient experience as a valued customer at your practice. It consists of a range of materials, supplied by Denplan, to improve communication with your patients.

PI

– these Denplan Excel branded leaflets developed with the BDHF, provide clear and understandable information about many different types of dental care and treatment. Patients can take the information away with them to read at their leisure. They range from root canal treatment and veneers to mouth cancer and children caring for their own teeth.

Accreditation promotional material

– once you have achieved Denplan Excel Accreditation you will receive a high-quality accreditation plaque to display outside your practice and a certificate, which is reissued every 18 months to display in your reception area. Posters and patient brochures are also available for your practice to help you promote accreditation to your patients.

PI : benefits for your practice

  • Enhances communication between the practice team and patients, both adults and children
  • Helps patients value and understand their preventive programme and treatments
  • Demonstrates your commitment to effective communication with your patients

PI : benefits for your patients

  • Enhances understanding of the care and treatment available
  • Helps dispel misconceptions and fears surrounding treatments
  • Provides information that patients can take away and read at their leisure
  • Enhances feelings of inclusion in treatment decisions
  • Use of plain English for clarity
  • Provides a visible sign of your commitment to quality care

Component 4 – Denplan Excel/PreViser Patient Assessment (DEPPA)

(Adult patient assessment)

Effective and evidence-based modern dental care is founded on an individual risk assessment of each patient for dental caries, periodontal disease, non-carious tooth surface loss and soft tissue pathology including oral cancer.

By combining an efficient on-line individual patient risk assessment – using the proven technology and evidence base of PreViser© Inc – and Denplan’s own Oral Health Score©, Denplan Excel accredited dentists now have unique access to a verified chairside system.

Through a short on-line questionnaire (patients can even use an iPad® to enter the basic details) and clinical examination, a single report provides all relevant information in an immediately accessible format.

The personalised results can be instantly printed for the patient, scanned into patient records and – with consent and appropriate encryption security – e-mailed directly to the patient.

For new Denplan patients, the system will also provide an indicative Denplan Fee category to assist the clinician.

With the aid of this technology, patients receive confirmation of their current oral health status, incorporating their own perceptions of their health together with an expert and objective assessment of their risk for future disease.

Why is DEPPA unique?

  • It provides a single framework for full clinical examination and risk assessment – and evidence of its completion
  • It easily offers focused and individual communication to your patient – and provides evidence of it happening
  • It is a contemporary and evidence-based measure of risk management
  • It demonstrates additional value for money to all your patients
  • It is an invaluable audit tool to effectively measure the performance of patients and clinicians in promoting and maintaining oral health

DEPPA – benefits for your practice

  • A powerful value-added tool to help patients understand and appreciate your care
  • A consistent approach to examination and assessment, with improved and objective accuracy
  • Simplifies the monitoring and audit of individual patients or groups of patients, allowing you to assess the effectiveness of care
  • Improves patient relationship and better communication through their involvement in their own oral health

DEPPA – Benefits for your patients

  • Produces an instantaneous report of their oral health and risks of disease
  • Offers straightforward advice and explanation to help motivate the maintenance or improvement of their oral health
  • Patients feel more involved and participating in their oral health care and maintenance
  • Supports the clinician-patient relationship by offering clear and objective advice and communication

Component 5 - Denplan Excel for Children specific component


This comprises three key elements specific to paediatric dentistry which extend the Denplan Excel accreditation scheme to be applicable to younger patients up to the age of 16 years:

1). The Excel for Children Oral Health Assessment (OHA)

This practical assessment adopts a risk based methodology utilising a green/amber/red “traffic light” approach to assess a child’s current oral health status in four key areas:

  • Health of the teeth themselves
  • General Oral and periodontal health
  • Appearance/occlusion of the teeth
  • Dento-alveolar trauma

The colour scoring system is also designed to enable (indeed encourage) all children, irrespective of their initial status at first consultation, to progress towards “green” in all areas, providing both a “goal” and a “positive reinforcement” tool (for both children and their parents).
The principles of risk assessment for each domain reflects contemporaneous methodology for oral health/disease assessment, but, enables teams to utilise their existing/familiar approaches to such assessments (e.g. plaque scoring, periodontal assessment, assessment of malocclusion etc).

2). The Excel for Children Oral Wellbeing Assessment (OWA)

This enables the collection of additional information which is relevant to the delivery of effective oral health care that may not otherwise be apparent to the dental team through clinical examination. Following a risk based methodology again, the OWA is a questionnaire which measures four areas:

  • Dental anxiety and behaviour
  • Oral health self-awareness
  • Oral health quality of life
  • Oral health confidence

3). Preventive packages

Enhancing the delivery of preventive care for dental caries, erosion and periodontal disease is an important aspect of the Excel for Children programme.

To assist the dental team, suggested prevention protocols (or plans) have been designed for each age group, which can be tailored to address individual risks as informed by the OHA and OWA .

The preventive plans have been divided into three age ranges (0 - 3, 3 - 6 and 7 – 15 years). An additional preventive plan is also provided where tooth erosion has been identified as the primary risk and is applicable to all age groups. All plans allow for “personalisation” to suit individual children’s needs and the overall philosophy adopted by the practice.

This programme will:

  • Improve knowledge and experience in children’s dentistry for all practice staff
  • Give you and your staff the chance to earn verifiable CPD hours
  • Keep you up to date with the latest research in the field of paediatric dentistry