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Objective: To examine the provision of oral health and oral health service in rural areas from the perspective of general practitioners working in communities without resident dentists.

Design, setting and participants: A qualitative approach using face‐to‐face, semi‐structured interviews with 30 GPs from rural Queensland, Tasmania and South Australia, conducted between October 2013 and October 2014.

Results: Four major themes emerged from the interviews: rural oral health, managing oral health presentations, barriers to patients seeing a dentist, and improving oral health. Rural GPs saw patients with a range of oral health problems, including toothache, abscesses and trauma, and observed poor oral health in their communities. Some acknowledged that they were not confident when dealing with oral health problems; they typically provided short‐term pain relief, prescriptions for antibiotics, and advised …