Public dental waiting times NMDS

The PDWT NMDS enables reporting onthe length of time that patients wait for public dental care in Australia, and the characteristics of patients who receive care or who were listed for care in a reference period.The scope of the datacollection is all people eligible for their state or territory public dental scheme, who were aged 18 years or over when they were placed on a general or prosthetic public dentistry waiting list for the purpose of receiving treatment. The data collection includes: • all people specified above with a listing date for dental care within the collection period • all people specified above with a date of offer of dental care within the collection period • all people specified above with a date of first dental visit within the collection period. The data collection excludes: • people who access their local public dental clinic but pay full price and are not eligible for their state or territory's public dental service • people who are treated under jurisdictional priority client schemes (which can be the majority of clients treated in some jurisdictions). • treatments which do not result in removal from a waiting list, such as: - relief of pain that does not satisfy other dental treatment needs emergency treatment that does not satisfy other dental treatment needs.