Introduction: The publication of High Quality Care for All (2008) underscored the next challenge facing the United Kingdom’s National Health Service (NHS) - amelioration of the quality of care experienced by all patients, and that the responsibility for this begins with frontline, local staff. NHS orthodontic treatment is determined by using the Index of Orthodontic Treatment Need (IOTN); so those qualifying for treatment are also those most likely to benefit the greatest. The Peer Assessment Rating (PAR) Index can be used to evaluate the quality of treatment through assessing pre- and post-treatment plaster models of patients’ teeth thus determining the degree of improvement of the dentition.
Objective: To establish the quality of orthodontic treatment delivered at Kingston Hospital using the PAR Index.
Design and Setting: Retrospective audit in a hospital orthodontic unit.
Gold Standard: 75% of cases should exhibit a reduction in PAR score greater than 70% (greatly improved), with 3% or less with a PAR score less than 30% (no different).
Subjects/Materials and Methods: The cohort of 363 patients that also included cleft, hypodontia and orthognathic surgery patients was treated by different grades of clinicians over a 2-year period. The patients’ plaster models were scored by independent, calibrated PAR assessors.
Results: 276 patients (76%) had a reduction of PAR greater than 70%, 4 patients (1%) had a reduction less than 30% (Graph 1).
Conclusion: As 76% of patients had a reduction of PAR greater than 70%, the quality of orthodontic treatment at Kingston Hospital met the gold standard.