The study, from Newcastle University’s Centre for Oral Health Research, reveals that patients attending A&E with dental problems are now approaching 1 per cent (0.7 per cent) of all attendances. This is ten times official government figures – with over half of the cases identified related to toothache.
Around 14,500 patients with dental problems attended England’s A&Es according to official stats in 2014/15. The BDA has estimated that systematic under reporting could conservatively place dental attendees at closer to 135k patients per year at an annual cost of nearly £18m – with over 95k cases of toothache coming in at £12.5m.
The BDA recently estimated that 600k patients a year are seeking treatment from GPs, who like A&E medics are not equipped to treat dental pain. Dentists’ leaders have called on ministers to show leadership, provide a coherent strategy for oral health and stop pushing patients away with inflation busting increases in NHS charges.
Henrik Overgaard-Nielsen, chair of General Dental Practice at the BDA, said: “Ministers keep underestimating how much their indifference to dentistry has knock on effects across the health service. GPs and A&E medics are having to pick up the pieces, while government’s only strategy is to ask our patients to pay more in to plug the funding gap.
“We are seeing patients who need our care pushed towards medical colleagues who aren’t equipped to treat them. As long as government keeps slashing budgets and ramping up charges, we will keep seeing more of the same.”
Dr Justin Durham, clinician scientist at NIHR, senior lecturer in oral surgery and orofacial pain at Newcastle University, honorary consultant at Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and the senior author on the study, said: “If you experience toothache without significant other symptoms, then heading to a hospital’s A&E department isn’t always the best option. Ensuring that patients are treated in the right place, at the right time, by the right team is essential for both the patient and the wider public, not just to ensure appropriate diagnosis and treatment but also reduce unnecessary care and personal costs.
“This paper and other recently published data from Newcastle University’s Orofacial pain research team suggest there are potentially significant problems in the care pathways both for toothache, and also the group of conditions that cause persistent mouth and face pain such as temporomandibular disorders and trigeminal neuralgia.”