NHS dental professionals' evaluation of a child protection learning resource

The aim of this survey was to evaluate the impact of an educational child protection resource which had been developed and made available, free of charge, to all NHS dental practices and salaried primary dental care services in England and concurrently published online. A postal questionnaire was sent to a random sample of 1000 NHS dental practices to assess whether the learning objectives of the educational resource had been met. A total of 467 questionnaires were completed (46.7% response rate). Almost two thirds of participants (63.4%) remembered receiving the Child Protection and Dental Team (CPDT) handbook or seeing the website and almost all of them had used (looked at or read) it and felt able to access it if needed. Of the 265 users, 76.2% felt it had improved their knowledge of child protection, 60.5% had adopted a child protection policy, 53.7% had identified a child protection lead and 25.8% had arranged further training as a result of using the educational resource. The findings from the evaluation indicated that the learning objectives of the CPDT educational resource had been met and highlighted ways in which the resource could be further improved to effectively meet the needs of dental professionals.