Just a week apart, two rather different stories have emerged from the West Country about dental vans. With their proportionately high rural populations, small coastal communities and many households on low incomes, both Devon and Cornwall have a good deal in common.
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Times may have changed since the Yes Minister episode where Jim Hacker explained that The Guardian is read by the people who think they ought to run the country. Nonetheless when it comes to dentistry the house style is not to run an expose on Turkey Teeth but offer a “Guardian View” editorial, setting out what in the paper‘s opinion, needs to be done.
While many may be enjoying the on off heatwaves this summer, the serious political geeks will be busy preparing for the highlight of their year, the annual party conferences. The major political parties will be holding their big annual autumn meetings, starting with Labour at the end of September.
Read more: Party Political Conferences: Dental Update for September
The Local Government Association (LGA) has recently completed an analysis of available data published by NHS England about dental access. The LGA found that an uneven distribution of NHS dental practices in England is leaving many communities struggling to access treatment, particularly rural and deprived areas.
Read more: Local Government Concerns with Gaps in NHS Dental Access
Anyone emerging from a Rip Van Winkle like sleep, or a couple of decades marooned on a desert island, and wondering about the state of UK dentistry, would rapidly get up to speed after reading a single article published recently in The Courier.
The former Faculty of General Dental Practitioners (FGDP) first published Standards in Dentistry in 2006. Based upon the earlier ground breaking Self Assessment Manual and Standards, it set out to offer a consensus on what were reasonable standards to be expected in clinical practice. In the spirit of good, better, best, it defined both a baseline to be expected of clinicians, as well as aspirational standards that represented best practice.
Patients prescribed GLP-1 receptor agonists such as semaglutide (Ozempic, Wegovy) are increasingly presenting with an adverse effect informally termed “Ozempic teeth.” Although not widely recognised among the most common systemic side effects, the phenomenon is beginning to be reported in dental settings.
GDPUK readers may be familiar with the claims made about stem cell banking using children‘s primary teeth. Some parents are already spending thousands of pounds to do this for their children, often persuaded by the claims about their future medical value, made by the companies providing the service.
Read more: Deciduous Teeth Stem Cell Banking Under the Spotlight
Connoisseurs of the leopards eating people faces meme, may want to spare a thought for the CDO, the GDC clinical advisers, and NHS England.
In the latest Your NHS dentistry and oral health update, Jason Wong, CDO England, led with the government‘s ambitious 10 year plan. As things stand, however, all those extra appointments are likely to see a lot less clinical activity delivered than the Department of Health and Social Care would like.
Read more: CDO Seeks To Influence Dental Record Keeping Arms Race