Out-of-hours emergency dental services--evaluation of the first year of a pilot project in Fife.

The Scottish Executive Health Department approved funding in 2001 for Fife NHS Board to pilot an integrated model of out-of-hours dental services based upon a dental nurse-led triage system during the evenings, weekends and some public holidays. After one year of the pilot project the activity was evaluated by analysing the triage database. Nearly 4,000 calls were received--Fridays and Saturdays were the most popular days to telephone which resulted in nearly half of all callers being referred to an emergency weekend clinic. Thirty-nine percent of callers received advice only or were advised to contact their own dentist during working hours. A further 12% who were not registered with a dentist (n=479) were offered a next-day appointment with a dentist in their area--around half of these callers subsequently attended for an appointment. Only two out of every 100 callers were deemed to require emergency out-of-hours attention and were referred to oral surgery staff in a local hospital.