492 - To assess the possible increase in referrals for emergency dental care to PCH A&E during COVID-19

A O' Halloran
Presented by: Apryl O' Halloran
Prince Charles Hospital

Introduction Studies in the UK have shown an increase the number and severity of infections of dental origin presenting to Oral and Maxillofacial surgery units across the country. Within Wales, the pandemic of Covid -19, unfortunately, access of general dental services have been severely restricted with local dental practices closing and trying to give prescriptions remotely. Dental hubs have been set up, however access to these have been restricted to dentist only referrals. This lasted until June 2020 whereby this was changed from the 'red phase' to the ‘amber phase’ meaning routine treatment could be carried out. Method The audit is a retrospective data analysis. A list of patients who attended the Accident and Emergency Department in Cwm Taf Morgannwg Healthboard was obtained for 2019 and for 2020. First cycle of the audit was carried out from March – May for both years. Based upon the results recommendations were made and a second cycle was carried out from June- December for both years. Codes were obtained from logged codes in A&E casual cards. The codes obtained for this audit were ‘Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Infection, Tooth Ache, Post- op problems, Teeth, Dental Injury’. Data was extracted from the casual cards and analysed with an excel spreadsheet. Results The number of patients seen in 2019, in comparison to 2020 did significantly decreased. For 2020 almost double the number of patients were seen in the Oral and Maxillofacial Outpatient department in comparison to 2019. Severity of infections increased in 2020 with more patients admitted. Antibiotics and discharge was the most common outcome for patients both years. Conclusions: The majority of cases that come to A&E could have been dealt with in General Practice. . The severity of the infections did increase throughout the pandemic in 2020. In general, the number of patients seen with dental emergencies however significantly decreased in 2020 in comparison to 2019
Consent Statement: There are no details on individual patients reported within the abstract.

Poster