Iffah Zaman* and Zara Leighton

Dental Officer, Community Dental Services, Bridgewater NHS Foundation Trust, United Kingdom

*Corresponding Author: Iffah Zaman, Dental Officer, Community Dental Services, Bridgewater NHS Foundation Trust, United Kingdom.

Received: December 15, 2021; Published: January 06, 2022

Abstract

Background: Dentists have a responsibility to thoroughly assess the head and neck area for patients during clinical visits regardless of the patients presenting issue. This enables dental practitioners to help identify patients with signs or symptoms that could be caused by cancer.

Aims: This Audit aims to evaluate local compliance in a Primary Care setting with Nice Guidelines (NG12) for suspected cancer: recognition and referral pathway across the Community Dental Services at Bridgewater NHS Foundation Trust at the Oldham, Rochdale and Bury Boroughs (ORB).

Methods: This retrospective audit examined a sample of 30 urgent referrals made across the ORB boroughs from January 2019 to May 2020 for compliance with national NG12 guidelines.

Results: Results showed that none of the patients met 100% of the criteria for suspected cancer referrals. 13.3% of patients that were referred had confirmed cancer that we are aware of. 100% of referrals were sent due to signs/symptoms that conform to the NICE NG12 guidelines. There was 100% compliance with practitioners documenting patient symptoms. 10% of patients had no mention of their cancer risk factors in their records.

13% of patients had no documented consent for their urgent referral. 37% of patients had no clinical documentation of any further information/support provided to them. 13.3% of patients who had suspected cancer referrals sent were followed up by us within 2 weeks. For 33.3% of the patients we referred we never heard back from the specialist department.

Conclusion: We should address the inconsistencies identified with clinical record keeping, addressing risk factors, gaining valid consent and the follow-up process both locally and from specialist services.

Keywords: Audit; Suspected Cancer; NG12; NICE; Community Dental Services

References

1. org.uk. Overview. “Suspected Cancer: Recognition And Referral”. Guidance | NICE (2020).
2. org. “Risks And Causes”. Mouth Cancer | Cancer Research UK (2020).
3. Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA). Oral Cancer Care– prevention, early detection, referral, care. Local Guide - advice and guidance for the primary care dental team. 1^st Edition (2019).

Citation

Citation: Iffah Zaman and Zara Leighton. “An Audit Evaluating Local Compliance with NICE NG12 Suspected Cancer: Recognition and Referral Pathway at Bridgewater NHS Foundation Trust Community Dental Services”. Acta Scientific Dental Sciences 6.2 (2022): 31-36.

Copyright

Copyright: © 2022 K Iffah Zaman and Zara Leighton. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.