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For patient safety and public trust in dental care it is essential that the patient can trust the person who is providing him with care. It is increasingly common for dental care to be provided by non-dentists. The regulations governing this practice are contained in the Individual Healthcare Professions Act. A recent evaluation of this legislation revealed that those affected are not generally aware of the conditions under which non-dentists are permitted to carry out tasks in dental care or that they are unsure how these requirements have to be put into practice. It is a matter of concern that this knowledge, by comparison with a previous study, has hardly increased and in some cases has actually decreased.

Judges up to and including the Law Lords (Supreme Court) and the Central Disciplinary Tribunal for Healthcare in the Netherlands do not consider guidelines to be optional. This offers security to patients and dental care professionals. But a field of tension can exist between, on the one hand, a patient's right of self-determination and the dental care workers professional autonomy and, on the other, a guideline. This field of tension can be resolved by first limited testing of the acceptability of the goal of care desired by the patient, taking into consideration at the same time professional autonomy; and, subsequently, by selecting the most effective treatment for achieving this goal of care on the basis of 'evidence'. With respect to the current definition of guidelines for clinical practice, this means that patients and healthcare workers explicitly acknowledge that they have been able to agree on a goal of care that deviates from the ideal. In this way, a judicially responsible balance is achieved between the right of self-determination and professional autonomy, on the one hand, and, on the other, the desire for evidence-based treatment and a limitation on unaccountable variation in treatment and transparency of care.

Each generation likes to see itself as unique and thinks that the conditions under which people live and work are also unique. This position does not, for the most part, apply to dentists. Two questions which are now under discussion were also under discussion in the past. In the first case, this has to do with whether dentistry should be seen especially as a profession in which skill and competence are central, or as a medical discipline in which science (too) is central. The second question which was posed in the past as it is now is whether the dentist is seen especially as a salesman, albeit as a healthcare provider. Both questions are of the greatest significance for the image of dentists and also perhaps indirectly for the future of the professional group. Indeed, the answer to these questions has determined in the past as well as now the image of dentists and the degree to which the government has believed that dentists could be replaced by less highly educated non-dentists. For that reason, a clear answer to these questions ought to be formulated. It is possible that the answers given to these same questions in the past will be helpful in formulating answers now.