Out-of-hours emergency oral healthcare provision in Ireland

The Dental Council of Ireland's Code of Professional Behaviour and Dental Ethics 1998, states that it is the duty of all dentists to provide emergency care to patients and to make their patients aware of this service. OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to investigate the provision of out-of-hours emergency oral healthcare in Ireland. METHODS: A sample of 135 general dental practitioners was randomly selected from the telephone directories of both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. The dentists'surgeries were then contacted by telephone outside normal surgery hours to determine the availability of their emergency service. All 135 dentists were contacted by phone to answer a follow up questionnaire which was to be completed at a convenient time by the dentist in question. RESULTS: A total of 135 dentists were contacted as part of the first telephone survey and of these a total of 50 of the selected dentists chose to complete the second follow up telephone questionnaire. Of the 135 dentists contacted initially 17 (6.1%) were available within 24 hours to provide emergency treatment, the remaining 114 (84.4%) could not be contacted or did not respond to messages within 24 hours. CONCLUSION: The results of this study suggest that there is very limited availability of emergency out-of-hours oral healthcare in Ireland.