Primary and secondary dental care: how ideal is the interface?

In our previous paper in this journal, we described an ideal interface between primary and secondary dental care in terms of equity, seamless care and efficiency and effectiveness. This paper examines the published evidence describing considerable ongoing problems with the interface under these headings and the ways in which those problems might be better described, quantified and addressed.

Primary and secondary dental care: the nature of the interface.

Specialist dental services are scarce resources and are often oversubscribed. A key element is how these services relate to their referral base, in other words the interface between primary and secondary dental care. Dentistry has several unique qualities when compared with medicine and the nature of the interface between primary and secondary dental care is consequently very different to the medical interface, whilst apparently sharing common features.