Evidence and dental records: common questions
Your records are the case. These are the questions people ask about getting them.
You are entitled to the whole file, free
Under the UK GDPR you can require a dental practice to give you a copy of the personal data it holds about you, within one month and at no charge. In practice the difficulty is rarely the right itself and almost always the completeness of what comes back: a printed summary instead of the full notes, or screenshots instead of diagnostic-quality radiographs. Asking for each category by name at the outset avoids months of delay later.
FAQs
Frequently asked questions
Full clinical notes, all radiographs at original resolution, CBCT scans, treatment plans, signed consent forms, referral letters and replies, clinical photographs, and correspondence with the practice.
Send a written subject access request to the practice, naming each category of record you want. Keep a dated copy. The practice must respond within one month.
No. A first subject access request must be provided free of charge. A fee may only be charged for repeat copies of the same information.
Write once more referring to the statutory one-month deadline, then complain to the Information Commissioner's Office, which handles this free of charge.
No. A summary is not the record. Ask specifically for the complete clinical notes including handwritten entries, and for radiographs as original image files rather than screenshots — an expert cannot interpret a low-resolution copy.
Altering records to mislead is serious professional misconduct. Practice software keeps an audit trail showing when entries were created or amended, which is why it is worth requesting the audit trail alongside the notes.
Photographs help but are rarely decisive. The clinical record, the radiographs and the findings of the dentist who took over your care usually carry more weight than anything you could have photographed.