A host of children benefiting from an oral health programme take centre stage in a film all about how they are part of a highly successful in-school tooth care scheme. Teeth Team has produced a film all about its child oral health improvement programme facilitated by local dental practices in areas of severe social deprivation in Hull and East Yorkshire.
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A report by The King’s Fund has called on politicians to be honest with the public about what the NHS can realistically achieve within its budget. Senior policy adviser Helen McKenna said: “It is no longer credible to argue that the NHS can continue to meet increasing demand for services, deliver current standards of care and stay within budget.”
Read more: King's Fund urges Government to be ‘honest’ over NHS
Dentists should provide residents in care homes with preventive help and treatment as necessary, in line with local arrangements. This is the latest guidance from the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE), which also says that care home staff need to take teeth more seriously and help residents to brush twice a day. Dentists should also ensure dentures made for individual residents are appropriately marked by the lab during manufacture.
Read more: NICE issues guidance on oral health in care homes
Bradford South MP Judith Cummins has campaigned on the issue of the state of dental health in West Yorkshire and raised the problem at Prime Minister’s Questions in January. She has welcomed NHS England and the West Yorkshire Local Dental Network’s plans to make it easier to see an NHS dentist in the south and centre of Bradford and North Kirklees.
Chief Dental Officer for England, Sara Hurley was speaking at Westminster Health Forum seminar. She stressed that her priority was improving oral health as well as delivering dental care. The role of Local Dental Networks was developing to impact on the various decision makers who would achieve this objective.
Junior hospital dentists and doctors have voted to reject their new contract, 63% of BDA dentists and 58% of BMA doctors voted against the deal agreed at ACAS in May with the Health Secretary. Both associations are now reviewing their next steps in light of the ballot.
Read more: Junior dentists and doctors vote against contract