The Chief Scientist reports ... Monitoring the dental health of Scottish children using routinely collected data.

Since the introduction in 1990 of the capitation scheme of payment for the dental care of children, information for those children registered in the scheme has been collected by General Dental Practitioners on a regular (usually annual) basis using form GP17C. These forms are processed centrally by the Dental Practice Division in Edinburgh. The information collected includes data on the dental caries experience of the child as assessed by the dentist. This paper considers some of the problems associated with the collection of this data, as currently undertaken, and its potential usefulness in monitoring the dental health of Scottish children.