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The 2018/19 annual report from the Dental Board Of Australia/AHPRA can be found here and has interesting insights into matters relevant to professional indemnity insurance for Dentists.  Some extracts from the report can be seen below.

The report shows there were 23,730 dental practitioners, up 2.8% from 2017/18 and that dental practitioners make up 3.2% of all registered health practitioners. 74.7% were dentists.

749 notifications were lodged with AHPRA (Unless stated otherwise, all notification data is AHPRA data.)

Australia-wide, including Health Professional Councils Authority (HPCA) in NSW and Office of the Health Ombudsman (OHO) in Queensland data, 992 registered dental practitioners – or 4.2% – had notifications made about them

733 notifications were closed

10.2% had conditions imposed on registration or an undertaking accepted

8.5% received a caution or reprimand

0.1% had their registration suspended or cancelled

0.1% were fined

18.4% were referred to another body or retained by a health complaints entity (HCE)

62.6% had no further action taken

Immediate action was taken 8 times

56 mandatory notifications were received – 50 about professional standards

167 dental practitioners were monitored for health, performance and/or conduct during the year

132 cases were being monitored at 30 June

8 on grounds of conduct

13 for health reasons

72 for performance

5 prohibited practitioner/student

34 for suitability/eligibility for registration

42 criminal offence complaints were made and 40 closed. There were 24 new matters related to title protection. There were 6 to practice protection. And 12 to advertising breaches

Matters decided by a tribunal: 11

Matters decided by a panel: 0

Decisions appealed: 1