Sir, we were extremely pleased to see the inclusion of the paper by Heidari et al. that highlights the compromised general and oral health of remand prisoners (BDJ 2007; 202: E5).

The Department of Community Special Care Dentistry within King's College London Dental Institute has been involved in the provision of dental services within prisons for almost 10 years including within HMP Brixton, Feltham Young Offenders Institute and HMP Belmarsh.

It was, in fact, while a member of this department that the primary author was given the opportunity to work within the prison dental services and was later funded by the department to undertake this research as part of her MSc in Sedation and Special Care Dentistry.

We were therefore extremely disappointed that, given the department's involvement in the provision of dental services within HMP Brixton, together with the department's support to the primary author while undertaking this research, there was no acknowledgement of this within the summary that appeared in the BDJ. This disappointment was greatly shared by all senior dental officer colleagues within our department, some of whom have themselves over the years provided dental care within the prison service.

We are very pleased to note in the full text of the paper available on the BDJ website that the primary author expressed her appreciation to the Consultant/Head of Department, Dr Liana Zoitopoulos, for the support that allowed this study to be undertaken. However, in our opinion both the summary published in the BDJ and the full text do not properly portray the role of the Department of Community Special Care Dentistry within this research or in the provision of dental care to prisoners within HMP Brixton.

Readers of the BDJ who only read the summary of this article and do not avail themselves of the full text would, we believe, incorrectly assume that this research was undertaken by another department where the primary author now works as there is no acknowledgement of ours.

We felt very strongly that we should write to bring our concerns to your attention as this research would not have been possible without the clinical, administrative and operational management support provided by the Department of Community Special Care Dentistry. Without this departmental infrastructure we would have been unable to tender for the contract and ultimately provide oral health dental care for prisoners within HMP Brixton.