Oral Health | Clinical and Risk Asessment | How and when to refer patients

How and when to refer patients
Session overview
Description
This session will describe the process of referring a patient and will cover the various conditions and treatments that require referral.

Learning objectives
By the end of this session you will be able to:

• explain the role of the consultant
• describe the referral process
• describe the limitations of the referral process
• list the factors that make a referral urgent
• explain the rapid access referral process

Prerequisites
Before commencing this session you should:

• have basic experience of dental practice

Patients requiring specialist dental care that cannot be provided within the general dental practice setting need to be referred to an appropriate specialist practice, the community dental service, or a hospital unit.

Within district hospitals, the normal range of dental specialities will include oral and maxillofacial surgery and orthodontics.

Other specialities, such as restorative dentistry, paedodontics, oral medicine and special care dentistry may only be found in teaching hospitals.

This session examines the referral process in detail, including:

• when it is appropriate to refer a patient
• how the referral process works
• what happens once the referral has been made

However, before continuing, take a moment to consider the following questions.