The Camden and Islington LDC was joined by Head of Dental Commissioning for London, Jeremy Wallman, Head of of Delegated Services NCL ICB, India Peach and Consultant in Dental Public Health, Rakhee Patel at their Annual General Meeting held on 20 November.
Jeremy provided an update on the commissioning arrangements in North Central London. It had been hoped that there would be some additional funding available in year as usual, but this funding had not materialised. There would be no additional UDAs available in year, but the ICB may pay for additional overperformance though the level has not yet been agreed. The ICB is aware that some practices are in danger of running out of UDAs, though this seems to be a very unusual situation and will be looked at on a case by case basis. More information will be sent out by the end of November. There was still no news on whether the new patient premium was going to continue or not.
The structure of the ICB was briefly outlined:
India updated on the Cardio Vascular Disease case finding pilot which has gone live. One Urgent Dental Centre in each borough is acting as a pilot practice for this initiative, except in Islington and there are two in Haringey. This was based on their location as areas of high deprivation. Training was provided by the local Training Hub. Blood pressure checks are being undertaken on patients to assess if there is any risk of hypertension based on their blood pressure reading when they will be referred to onwards services. This was seen as a pathfinder for collaboration. The list of participating practices is below:
Vitality Dental Care – Haringey
Broadway Dental Care LTD – Enfield
Alexandra Park Dental Practice – Haringey
Mill Hill Dental Practice – Barnet
Malmin Dental Holborn – Camden
Rakhee provided an update on a possible diabetes pilot. There was a great deal of interest in NCL to see how dentists could integrate with other primary care colleagues to deal with long term conditions. The long term condition they decided to focus on was diabetes. Since April GPs in NCL had been capturing data on diabetic patients to see if they attended a dentist. The data has not been assessed yet, but those patients who do not attend and who are rated as yellow or red will have a pathway for dental care. The modelling is being developed by UCL to understand how much care they require and what the potential cost implication would look like. This was going to be funded by the underspend of the dental budget of about £800,000 over the next two years. They had discussed with local authorities about priority groups and how to increase access for those groups. In NCL this will be a small number of practices, perhaps 2 per local authority to ensure that funding is adequate.
They will also use some dental budget to extend weekend access for the Whittington and in support of local Give Up Loving Pop initiatives. These had been operating in the current year as they were quick to get up and running. Some of the initiatives may run next year in addition to the integration pilot focused on diabetes. In order to help bring down waiting lists for the CDS paediatric list there is a discussion about how a partnering arrangement can be put in place with the CDS and practices to see if more children can be seen in primary care.
The full presentation from the ICB which explains all the local initiatives running in north central London is available to download.
Finally the AGM heard an update on the work of the LDC which involved engagement with the ICB on the above projects. Plans for next year would be to build on engagement at the ICB level and also the local level, with local healthwatch, councils and the training hub.
