title: An audit of the standard of response letters sent by hospital specialists to general dental practitioners following a referred patient's first appointment.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  To assess the standard of response letters issued by dental hospital departments according to the requirements of the recipient dentists.
  
  
  METHODS
  A cross-sectional survey from a UK dental hospital. All response letters issued from hospital departments between 1 January and 1 March 2003 were copied. Fifteen letters were selected for each department on a chronological sampling frame. The hospital response letters were compared to dentists' requirements, as determined in a previous study.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Almost all departments achieved a minimum total score of 80%. The scores across all of the departments together achieved over 90% for all items of information except those relating to time. The samples of the three departments to score over 90% were the only ones to include SHO letters. The sample of the department with the highest score contained the most SHO letters and no consultant letters.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The content standard of response letters was consistently high, particularly those letters written by SHOs, and most were written within 18 days of the patient's appointment. The use of a previously conducted questionnaire survey of dentists' opinions provided a valid means of assessing the quality of the response letters from hospital specialists.
authors.affiliation: National Public Health Service for Wales, Swansea, UK. pamela.tomlinson@nphs.wales.nhs.uk
authors.forename: Pamela
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Tomlinson
authors.forename: Robert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: McAndrew
mesh_terms: D001071:Appointments and Schedules; D003142:Communication; D015709:Correspondence as Topic; D019230:Dental Audit / Q000379:methods*; D003815:Dentists; D006801:Humans; D007400:Interprofessional Relations; D012017:Referral and Consultation; D013997:Time Factors