A survey of general dental practitioners' opinions of response letters received from hospital specialists following a referred patient's first appointment.

Objectives: To discover what dentists require of a hospital response letter with regards to content and timeliness.

Design: Postal survey.

Setting: South Wales.

Subjects And Methods: A postal questionnaire was issued to all dentists (n = 256) who had referred a patient to the dental hospital between 1 January 2003 and 1 March 2003.

Results: The response rate was 60.2% (154). The preferred time frame for the receipt of a letter following a patient's appointment was one to three weeks for 96.4% (n = 133) of respondents, but 58.4% believed that they currently do not receive responses within this time frame. The preferred method of communication remained the letter (n = 82, 53%), followed by the telephone (n = 58, 38%). E-mail accounted for eight percent (n = 12) of communication. Most respondents (70%, n = 107) were satisfied with the letters' content. Eight of the ten items of information suggested as being appropriate in a response letter were considered essential by 53.2% of dentists (n = 82), and 55.8% (n = 76) believed the remaining two items to be desirable.

Conclusions: Dentists agree closely on the information required in a response letter and most are satisfied with the content of current response letters. However, many dentists believe response letters arrive later than three weeks after their patient's appointment.