Patient safety in dentistry – a decade in the making

Patient safety is a fundamental aspect of any healthcare system. We explore the development of patient safety both generally and in relation to dentistry over the past ten years. Other aspects of healthcare and various concepts are explained and described, including human factors, Safety I and Safety II, patient safety culture, managing patient safety incidents and the second victim concept, perfectionism and punishment myths, and hierarchy, along with wellbeing and support for practitioners. We bring together ten years of experience in patient safety related to dentistry and discuss this in the context of wider developments in patient safety, with reference to reports and policies that have influenced this field. We also include helpful resources and suggestions to allow readers to discover more about patient safety in dentistry, and to examine the safety culture in their own organisations. We finish this paper by contemplating on what the next decade might bring.