Hospital Dental Service - Specialty and Procedure Groupings

This section provides information on the specialty the patient was treated in as well as the procedure that was performed.

Specialty

In an acute hospital setting, there are 6 dental specialties that patients can be treated in.  Figure 2 below shows that 91% of all inpatients discharged from a dental specialty were from oral surgery.  This is also true for day cases and new outpatient attendances where 54% and 59% respectively, were discharged from the specialty of oral surgery.

Please click on the above chart for relating tables and notes

Procedure groups

Information is this section is based on the SMR01 hospital inpatient and day case discharge data.    The procedural groupings considered (figure 3) are for the specialty of oral surgery only.

Please click on the above chart for relating tables and notes

Figure 3 shows that 'Extraction of multiple teeth nec' (nec - not elsewhere classified) account for 40% of all the procedures carried out.  The rate for males (187.9 per 100,000 population) is only slightly higher than the rate for females (164.3 per 100,000 population).  Other common procedures carried out include  'surgical removal of an impacted wisdom tooth' (8%) and 'unspecified simple extraction of tooth' (5%).  In the top ten, there are a series of 'miscellaneous procedures' that account for 4% of all procedures. 

Elective (planned) admissions account for approximately 90% of all discharges from dental specialties.  The most common elective (planned) procedure for both males and females is the 'Extraction of multiple teeth nec'.  Emergency admissions only account for approximately 7%.  One of the most common procedural groups is 'Miscellaneous procedures'.  Males are more than twice as likely as females to be admitted an emergency to a dental specialty for treatment.