ICB Looks for Good News Stories in Dentistry
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- Published: Wednesday, 09 October 2024 09:59
- Written by Peter Ingle
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The 43 Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) appear to have adopted 43 different approaches to commissioning in the fragmented world of NHS dentistry. Appearances matter, and ICB‘s will be very conscious of the optics of how they are seen to manage dental access.
Sussex Health and Care is the branding used by the Integrated Care Board for Sussex, indeed it takes a certain amount of searching on their website to find their helpful clarification: ‘NHS Sussex (otherwise known as the Integrated Care Board).’
There are some glad tidings for Sussex residents in the website news section: “People in Sussex are set for further improvements to dental access as a new recovery plan has been agreed. On Wednesday 25 September 2024, the NHS Sussex Board approved a comprehensive plan at its meeting in public, which aims to continue work to increase NHS dental activity and support the people of Sussex to access the care they need when they need it.”
GDPUK took a look at the plan. Understandably it is based on the National Dental Recovery Plan. Indeed, at first sight it is difficult to see what has been added apart from the colourful Sussex Health and Care logo. Minimum UDA rate, check. New patient premium, check. The Dental Recruitment Incentive Scheme of ‘golden hellos’, check. Promoting skill mix, check. There is more, including approving contract over performance for those able to deliver extra NHS activity, and flexible commissioning which will include sessional models of care. ‘Supporting practice resilience’ will mean surveying the dental workforce and monitoring performance and capacity of practices. ‘Reviewing dental contract performance and restructuring contracts as appropriate’, also appears, as part of their delivery of the national plan.
Two concrete examples of actual improvements in action are offered. The previous pilot scheme for urgent Dental Care and Stabilisation (UDCS) which ran in 10 practices over 12 weeks in early 2024 provided appointments to over 500 patients, and targeted those most in need. It is considered a success, and the insights gained in the pilot will be used to deliver the ICBs contribution to the 700 000 appointments promised by the government.
The second example will launch this autumn and is a domiciliary care pilot using dental therapists to conduct annual screens of elderly care home residents in Crawley.
Not to be left out from the move towards a dental school for every city, there is also to be a Centre for Dental Development which will ‘offer new NHS care pathways and support dental workforce’ and contribute to addressing health inequalities.
24 hours after the publication of the plan local radio reported that 46,172 children in East Sussex were not seen by an NHS dentist in the past year. This equates to 45% of the children in that area. In West Sussex there were 78,384 children who had not been seen. Two local Lib Dem MPs took the opportunity to call for an end to ‘dental deserts’ and blame the previous government. They went on to call for an emergency rescue plan for NHS dentistry.
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