The Public Dental Waiting Times (PDWT) national minimum data set enables reporting on the 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.

Collection details
Variables to support reporting and linkage
  • Age (Date of birth)
  • Sex/gender
  • Indigenous status
  • SEIFA

Temporal coverage 

1/7/2013 to 30/6/2023

Geographical coverage

  • NSW
  • VIC
  • QLD
  • WA
  • SA
  • TAS
  • ACT
  • NT

Data availability

  • Publications
  • Summary tables published in electronic form.

Client specified tables on request which may be subject to data provider approval (charges apply).

Restricted unit record access subject to Ethics Committee approval and/or the agreement of all relevant data custodians in all states and territories (charges may apply).

Data scope 

The scope of the data collection 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.

Methodology 

Admin data

Metadata information and data quality statement (DQS)

Public dental waiting times data source entry

External links and information

A discussion of public dental waiting times information in Australia: 2013–14 to 2016–17

The AIHW publishes PDWT NMDS data in its Oral health and dental care in Australia publication

Data are also published in the Report on government services series

Contact

[email protected]