Update on the NCL diabetes/dental pre-pilot and larger pilot planned for 2026/27
Rakhee Patel, Dental Clinical Lead for North Central London ICB, Nita Bull, Senior Consultant at Transformation Partners in Health and Care (TPHC), and dental leads from the two participating dental practices attended the Camden and Islington, Enfield and Haringey, Barnet joint LDC on 3rd November 2025 to update on the diabetes/dental pre pilot taking place in Enfield ahead of a wider NCL pilot in 2026/27.
NCL diabetes/dental pilot
The pilot is focused on the bidirectional link between gum health and diabetes management. The goal is to target the more complex patients from the diabetic population who are not currently affiliated with an NHS dentist, or accessing dental care, to measure the impact of improved gum health on their diabetes over an 18-month period.
Funding will primarily cover dental hygienist appointments to make them free for participating patients while any dental treatments would fall under the standard NHS dental contract. Training will be provided to all dental practices involved.
NCL diabetes/dental 20-week pre pilot in Enfield
A number of data unknowns in primary care around patient’s access to dental care and anticipated barriers to accessing care for patients experiencing health inequalities informed the decision earlier to run a focused pre-pilot to build learning for the wider pilot.
The 20-week pre-pilot launched in September 2025 for 50 patients with four participating GP practices and two dental practices in the more deprived south east corner of Enfield highlighted below.
The pre-pilot has iterated at each stage, co-developing and testing supporting materials with GP and dental leads. This includes the pathway itself, briefing scripts for the call and recall process in general practice, GP and dental trackers, expression of interest materials and the means for establishing data sharing agreements between GPs and dentists.
Most participating patients have now received a dental appointment and received their first dental hygiene appointment.
Taking the learning from the pre-pilot to inform the larger NCL pilot
The pre-pilot runs to the end of January 2026 and continues to iterate and feed information into the evaluation to optimise the success of the larger pilot. The learning will include why patients engage/disengage with periodontal treatment and how to manage this through the pathway.
The team is using the information generated through the pre-pilot to plan the approach for the 2026/27 NCL wide pilot. It is anticipated that early work on the larger pilot will identify participating GP practices that will then shape the expression of interest for participating dental practices where accessibility will be an important factor.
This is a really interesting and exciting pilot and the LDC looks forward to seeing how it works in Enfield, the learning that comes from this, and supporting its wider roll out across North Central London in 2026/27.
