This retrospective study was designed to assess the socioeconomic status of patients who underwent inpatient oral operations from 1989 to 1994 in the area covered by the West Midlands Regional Health Authority and to compare the distribution with those people treated by other specialties. A total of 4,926,438 hospital inpatient finished consultant episodes within 56 specialties that were recorded on the Hospital Episode Statistics database, of which 61,360 (1.25%) were dental (coded as oral surgery, restorative dentistry, orthodontics, and paediatric dentistry). The main outcome measure was the socioeconomic status of patients as assessed by the Townsend score (a measure of material deprivation that covers car ownership, home ownership, overcrowding, and unemployment). There was a highly significant correlation between the use of all inpatient services and social deprivation (R2 = 0.98, P < 0.001). This observation was consistent across all specialties except oral surgery, in which the correlation was reversed (R2 = 0.69, P < 0.001), indicating that patients who avail themselves of inpatient oral surgery are from a higher socioeconomic group. The application of a deprivation index to hospital episode data will enable purchasers and providers to measure more accurately the impact of their services on groups within the community.