FAQ Seven – How can I get an appointment to see an NHS hospital dentist?

Dental care is important for everyone, but it is particularly important for people with bleeding disorders. Oral health impacts overall health and good, preventative and restorative dental care reduces the need for more invasive procedures.

Hospitals do not provide a dental service to the general public, except in the special case of dental hospitals. The hospital dental service has four main functions:

• consultant advice and treatment for cases of special difficulty referred to hospitals by general dental and medical practitioners or for patients admitted to hospital as a result of trauma or disease
• dental care, including comprehensive treatment of long-stay hospital in-patients
• dental care of short-stay patients when this is required for pain relief or other emergency, or as part of, or in support of their general treatment
• the treatment of certain out-patients, where there are medical considerations which make it desirable for the treatment to be carried out in a hospital.

The majority of your treatment will not cause significant bleeding and may be carried out by a general dental practitioner (dentist) or within the public dental service. For some procedures, you may need to go to a dental hospital if your dentist is unable to carry this out.

If your haemophilia centre has access to a dentist in the hospital setting, you may be referred by your team or your local dentist. However, people with bleeding disorders will need to meet the required criteria for special dentistry.