Request

Following your response to FOI-02311 I am now seeking additional data from the Community Dental Services (CDS) data collection survey.

This covers survey data for each of the completion dates between: September 2023 and October 2024. (ie: October 2023 [Data from September 2023], January 2024 - [Data from December 2023], April 2024 - [Data from March 2024], July 2024 - [Data from June 2024], October 2024 - [Data from September 2024])

You have previously provided data on ‘The longest waiting time for an 'assessment' (Data not split by patient type).'

Please provided the equivalent data on the i) longest waiting time and ii) average waiting time for 'treatment' for a) routine treatment, b) sedation, and c) General anaesthetic.

Response

I can confirm that the NHSBSA holds the information you have requested, and a copy of the information is attached .

Please read the below notes to ensure correct understanding of the data.

Averages

For questions about averages, the respondents provide their own average, and the information we have supplied is the average of those averages. We do not hold the raw numbers to calculate the actual national averages.

Percentages of Patients

Please note that we do not hold information on the overall percentage of patients, each survey respondent only supplies their percentage, but not the raw numbers which these are based on. Therefore, we cannot supply the overall percentage. We have therefore supplied you with the average of percentages received.

Split between “Adult” and “Paed”

The questions about percentages beginning treatment within 18 weeks of referral and longest wait times do not separate between “adults” and “paeds” so the information collected in response to those questions do not provide that level of detail. Therefore, that information is also not held. We have supplied the average of the overall percentages, and the longest wait times but without splitting as requested.

Remaining Information

A copy of the information is attached.

The quarterly collections used in this dataset are:

October 2023 - [Data from September 2023] January 2024 - [Data from December 2023] April 2024 - [Data from March 2024] July 2024 - [Data from June 2024] October 2024 - [Data from September 2024]

Not every Community Dental Service (CDS) has responded to each quarter’s data collection.

Not every CDS has responded to each question within each quarter’s data collection. Some CDSs do not conduct all of the services .

There have been some queries received from CDSs as to what information should have been submitted (some have submitted a quarter’s worth of data, instead of just the previous months data)

There have been some queries received from CDSs where one CDS has submitted data on behalf of multiple CDSs within their individual CDS submission. There is a chance that the other CDS also made their own individual submissions which would be included in the figures provided.

Where multiple submissions were received from CDSs in a single quarter’s data collection, only the most recent response was kept and used.

Waiting times are collected based on the longest waiting time for a patient, as such we have provided the longest waiting time as well as the average longest waiting time for each of the services.

Data Queries

Please contact foirequests@nhsbsa.nhs.uk ensuring you quote the above reference if you have any specific questions regarding this response; or, if you feel you may be misunderstanding or misinterpreting the information; or, if you plan on publishing the data.

Reusing the data and copyright

If you plan on producing a press or broadcast story based upon the data please contact communicationsteam@nhsbsa.nhs.uk. This is important to ensure that the figures are not misunderstood or misrepresented.

The information supplied to you continues to be protected by the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and is subject to NHSBSA copyright. This information is licenced under the terms of the Open Government Licence detailed at:

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/

Should you wish to re-use the information you must include the following statement: “NHSBSA Copyright 2024” Failure to do so is a breach of the terms of the licence.

Information you receive which is not subject to NHSBSA Copyright continues to be protected by the copyright of the person, or organisation, from which the information originated. Please obtain their permission before reproducing any third party (non NHSBSA Copyright) information.