Should funding for secondary dental care be included in indicative practice budgets?
Answer Secondary dental care forms part of a range of specialised dental services that span primary and secondary care. These services include oral surgery, orthodontics, paediatric dentistry, restorative dentistry, periodontics and prosthodontics. Most of the referrals for these services are made by dentists but other referral routes include GPs, consultant-to-consultant, self-referral and A&E. Both secondary and primary dental care services fall outside the scope of PBC. They should be commissioned by PCTs, in order to ensure an integrated approach to commissioning and referral management for dentistry (which considers the total budget across primary care dentistry, primary care-based specialist services and secondary care services). PCTs should engage both primary care dentists (who make most of the referrals) and secondary care clinicians in assessing needs, developing care pathways and managing referrals. These services should be included when the breakdown of the entire PCT budge
