Emergency Dental Treatment - FOI Response Register

Please note NHS Shetland recently responded to an FOI on the related topic of out of hours emergency dental treatment. Our response can be found at the following address: https://www.shb.scot.nhs.uk/board/foi/2023/02/2022-729.pdf

I am looking for information regarding the number of people attending your Emergency Dental Treatment Centre. As such, can I please request the following in Excel format:

1. The number of Emergency Dental Treatment Centres run by your NHS Board, including a) the opening hours; b) eligibility for attending this centre/receiving an appointment; c) the total number of dentists employed, and how many are on shift at one time; the total number of dental nurses employed, and how many are on shift at one time?

2. The total number of patients, with a breakdown by month, requesting an emergency dental appointment at the Emergency Dental Treatment Centre for the last three financial years (2020/21, 2021/22 and 2022/23)?

3. The total number of patients receiving an emergency dental appointment for the last three financial years (2020/21, 2021/22 and 2022/23)?

4. The total number of patients not being accepted for an emergency dental appointment for the last three financial years (2020/21, 2021/22 and 2022/23), and the reasons for this?

5. How many of these patients were under 18 years old?

6. How many of these patients had been seen within the previous 12 months?

7. A breakdown of the dental treatment provided to those patients for an emergency dental appointment in the last three financial years (2020/21, 2021/22 and 2022/23)?

8. What is the procedure for discharging someone after receiving emergency dental treatment? Are they referred on to another dental? Is there a follow-up?

Under FOISA s 12(1), NHS Shetland is not obliged to comply with a request if the estimated cost of doing so exceeds £600. Having reviewed your request, NHS Shetland has determined that the cost of compliance would exceed £600 and so is unable to provide the information requested; we have provided a breakdown of the estimated costs below:

Information regarding emergency dental appointments is not collected by default by NHS Shetland and to answer this would require a significant amount of manual review. For example responding to FOI 2022-729, which we mentioned above, and which did not involve also breaking down the data by age, previous appointments, and treatment given, as requested here took 90 hours.

We estimate answering these questions would take in excess of 40 hours. Staff costs are capped at £15.00 per hour therefore where it would take longer than 40 hours this would exceed the £600 cap.

NHS Shetland may be able to provide a response to a new, narrower request for which the cost of compliance would not exceed the cost threshold. Please let us know if you would like to submit such a request.