Send your letters to the Editor, British Dental Journal, 64 Wimpole Street, London, W1G 8YS. bdj@bda.org. Priority will be given to letters less than 500 words long. Authors must sign the letter, which may be edited for reasons of space.
Sir, within the UK, patients whom present during 'Out of Hours' to accident and emergency departments are often treated by an on-call dental core trainee (DCT) in oral and maxillofacial surgery (OMFS).
These patients are then advised to seek follow-up treatment with their own general dental practitioner (GDP). A recent project carried out within the OMFS department at Altnagelvin Hospital in Northern Ireland highlighted that these patients were not routinely provided with a follow-up communication aid to outline the treatment they received to their own GDP.
Quite often dental trauma treated within OMFS units is complex. These patients may have had a splint placed which requires timely removal. The follow-up advice provided to these patients is important to allow the traumatised teeth to have the best possible outcome.1
A new local guideline has been implemented and a local pro-forma designed within our department for the treatment of traumatic dental injuries, detailing the injury sustained, initial treatment provided and a recommendation for future management.
This not only allows us to better communicate with our GDP colleagues but also fulfil our duty of following the GDC standards,2 notably Standard 6 : 'Work with colleagues in a way that is in patients' best interests'.
I think it is appropriate to highlight this finding to the wider population of dentists as many DCTs may be faced with a situation in which they are treating patients during Out of Hours and struggle to find a way to appropriately communicate their findings and treatment to the GDP. Perhaps within other OMFS departments, a similar local pro-forma could be implemented allowing for ease of communication between the hospital and primary dental services.
References
Bücher K, Neumann C, Thiering E et al. Complications and survival rates of teeth after dental trauma over a 5-year period. Clin Oral Investig 2013; 17: 1311–1318
General Dental Council. Standards for the dental team. Available at https://www.gdc-uk.org/professionals/standards (accessed 3 October 2018).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
McKeague, K., Cooper, A. Dental trauma: Better communication between hospital and primary dental services. Br Dent J 225, 907 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.bdj.2018.1043
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.bdj.2018.1043