Earlier this month Noor Sacoor, LDC Director for Ealing, attended the Brent Oral Health Network meeting on behalf of Nikita Vora, LDC Director for Brent. The meeting is a regular one which brings together the local stakeholders, including the LDC, CDS, Oral Health Promotion Team, Consultant in Dental Public Health and Council leads. This regular meeting discusses the various oral health projects operating in Brent, their outcomes and future projects
Brent is running 4 main oral health projects.
- Oral health screening projects in schools. They have targeted 24 schools out of which 22 schools have been seen. They have seen more than 800 children.
- Care homes training. they are assigning champions to each care home who are going to be trained. Twenty eight care homes have signed up. The plan is to provide training within the care homes to improve uptake.
- Three care homes have been identified to perform oral health assessments which should happen in February/March 2025. They asked for the involvement of two NHS dental practices and for the LDC to help identify practices that would be able to provide treatment for patients.
- Oral cancer. Brent has a large Asian population. Two buses were used on Ealing Road in Wembley with a dentist, Gujarati speaker ( translator). Sixty people were screened and four were referred to Northwick Park Hospital Maxfax department for further investigation. At previous meetings Nikita Vora had made it clear that dentists need to be involved with pathways as often practices can see as many as one patient per week requiring a referral under a two week wait.
We heard that six care homes would be inspected for oral health care in north west London. This was consistent across all ICB areas.
In addition, the meeting heard that:
- The Dental Wellness Trust has been carrying out fluoride varnish on 125 children. Numbers were reduced from those in the past because positive consent is now required. Five schools in the south of Brent had been targeted.
- The Oral Health Team are reaching a wider audience with supervised tooth brushing. Twenty nine schools, 40 nurseries, three family well being centres, and four Special Educational Needs Schools have signed up.
The next meeting of the group takes place in November and is likely to look at how dentists can be partnered more effectively with care homes and schools for oral health assessments and treatments. The group and Council are clearly keen to improve the oral health of children and care home residents but have not yet assessed if local dentists will have the NHS capacity to treat these patients. This is why it is key that the LDC is present at this local level and at the Integrated Care Board’s Primary Care Steering Group to ensure that there is a joining up of ambition.
