Hospital Dental Service

Dental services in Scotland are provided in various settings and include the General Dental Service (High street dentists), the Community Dental Service and the NHS Hospital Dental Service (secondary care).  This secondary care service accepts patients on referral from medical and dental practitioners. Consultants in other areas/specialties, including Emergency Dental Services, also make referrals.  Through the Hospital Dental Service, patients can be treated in either an outpatient clinic, or depending on what treatment they require, can be admitted as either an inpatient or a day case. Hospital dental service activity occurs not only in the 2 dental hospitals (Glasgow and Dundee), and the 1 dental institute (Edinburgh), but also in many general hospitals across Scotland. There are no in-patient beds in the dental hospitals/institute and therefore all inpatient activity occurs in the general hospitals.

Figure 1 shows the number of new outpatient attendances and inpatient/day case episodes that were treated in dental specialties.  In the five-year period presented, the number of inpatient and day case discharges has changed over time with 9,103 inpatients in 2002/03 and 5,912 in 2006/07 and 13,658 day cases in 2002/03 and 15,373 in 2006/07.  There is a 35% decrease in the number of inpatient episodes over the five-year period, however the number of day cases have increased by nearly 13%.  The number of new outpatient attendances have decreased by over 18% from 98,605 in 2002/03 to 80,385 in 2006/07. 

Approximately 1 in 17 new attendances to an outpatient clinic are to a dental specialty.  For inpatients and day cases combined, approximately 1 in 60 hospital discharges are from a dental specialty.

Please click on the above chart for relating tables and notes

In this section of the dental website, information is presented by procedural groupings and specialty as well as NHS Board of Residence.      

Click on the links below for the latest available information by:

    Procedural groupings and specialties

    NHS Board of Residence