How to get hold of your dental records

Under the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018 you have the right to a copy of the personal data a dental practice holds about you. This is a subject access request. It must be answered within one month, and it must be free — a practice that asks for a fee for a first request is wrong. The right belongs to you regardless of whether you still attend the practice, whether fees are outstanding, or whether you have complained.

A general request often produces a printed summary rather than the underlying record. Ask by name for each category.

• Full clinical notes for every appointment, including handwritten entries
• All radiographs as original DICOM or full-resolution image files, not screenshots
• CBCT scans in full, where any were taken
• Treatment plans, estimates and signed consent forms
• Referral letters sent and replies received
• Clinical photographs and study models
• Correspondence including emails, text reminders and complaint responses
• The audit trail or metadata showing when entries were created or amended

Send the request by email or recorded post to the practice manager or the data controller named on the practice privacy notice. State that it is a subject access request under the UK GDPR, give your full name, date of birth and approximate dates of treatment, and keep a dated copy. The one-month clock starts when the practice receives it, not when it gets round to reading it.

The most common problems are silence, a summary instead of the full record, or low-resolution images that cannot be interpreted by an expert. Write once more, referring to your original request and the statutory deadline. If that fails, complain to the Information Commissioner's Office, which handles this free of charge. Note that a practice cannot lawfully alter records after the event: the audit trail is itself evidence, which is why it is worth requesting.

An independent expert cannot give an opinion without the underlying record. Cases are frequently delayed for months waiting for imaging that was requested in the wrong format at the start. Getting the request right first time is the single most useful thing you can do before speaking to anyone about a claim.