During the Covid-19 pandemic/lockdowns, emergency dental services were closed or operated at greatly reduced capacity. Previous studies have shown that if patients cannot access urgent dental care at their dentist, many will attend their local A&E instead, where treatments for urgent dental problems (toothache, dental abscess, dental accidents) are not available.
Although it is thought that the Covid-19 pandemic indirectly impacted (and continues to impact) the presentation, diagnosis, management and outcomes of urgent dental conditions, with more patients attending A&E with dental problems, no studies have addressed this research question. This is likely due to an inability to access the required datasets.
At-risk subpopulations, such as people with a learning disability and those at risk of infective endocarditis (an infection of the inside of the heart), are especially vulnerable to the indirect impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on access to urgent dental care.
The aim of this research is to describe the indirect effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdowns on urgent dental conditions and access to urgent dental treatment. The CVD-COVID-UK consortium is currently the only group with access to the required datasets, including information on Covid-19 and the A&E dataset called “Emergency Care Data Set”.
Attendances to A&E for dental problems will be reported for the general population, and for two specific subgroups who have experienced healthcare inequalities throughout the Covid-19 pandemic period: people with a learning disability and those at-risk of infective endocarditis. Reporting attendances to A&E for dental reasons will greatly improve our understanding of how the Covid-19 pandemic affected access to urgent dental care, potentially identify important subgroups who are omitted, and will allow for evidence-based improvement of dental service provision.
Anticipated findings are that dental attendances to A&E dropped during the first lockdown, but have increased since and have not returned to pre-lockdown levels as of 2025. Disseminating these findings will allow for dental service planning for future pandemics; for current targeted communication programmes regarding urgent dental care tailored to subpopulations; and for an evidence base for commissioning of urgent dental care.