The South West London Local Dental Committee held its first Annual General Meeting on 31 October this year. At the AGM we presented our first Annual Report.
The LDC underwent a restructure to help bring new focus to our work. There are some things that we can influence ourselves and others we can influence through our engagement with stakeholders and other LDCs. But, to keep our focus on what we are trying to achieve the Board agreed a Vision statement:
“For local dentists to be empowered to provide the care their patients require with a supportive local network and NHS contract.”
Our approach to achieving this, a strong unified profession working under a contract that supports the workforce and delivers for patients is explained in our Mission:
“To provide an open and transparent environment for dentists to be able to provide the best care for their patients under their NHS contract by building effective local relationships and a supportive network of peers”
At the AGM we outlined some of our activities which are part of this approach and our achievements so far:
- The LDC established an SWL wide Oral Health Group with all key stakeholders, including the Senior Responsible Officer for Dentistry in the new NHS structure.
- Presented to the SWL Training Hub about dental services to ensure that colleagues in the rest of the health and care sector have improved knowledge of the importance of oral health and how dental services work.
- The LDC established an SWL Local Representative Forum to coordinate with the other primary care groups, pharmacy, optometry and general medical practice.
- We have established positive relationships with all six local Healthwatch to help inform local reports and ensure that the patient voice is well informed about dental services.
- We have met with most of the Directors of Public Health in each Local Authority as these are key stakeholders in oral health promotion, and a key voice in Integrated Care Systems.
We hope that it is clear that we are driving positive engagement and building relationships with all those who have an interest in, and ability to influence, dental services at the local level. By ensuring coordinated information and intelligence here we hope that our Integrated Care System will become a great example of how dentistry can help reduce health inequalities and improve health outcomes.
Updates of all of our activities can be found on the LDC webpage: https://ldc.org.uk/ldc-members/south-west-london-ldc/
As well as providing a summary of the last year’s activities, we also provided an outline of our plans for next year. These include:
- Improving communication to members and the number of meetings for members to attend to provide feedback, engage and volunteer for opportunities.
- Engaging with local politicians ahead of the London Mayoral election in May 2024.
- Engaging with local politicians ahead of the General Election.
- We will build on the establishment of the SWL Oral Health Group and aim to ensure it is the major force influencing local plans involving oral health.
- Build relationships with the local CQC dental inspection team to improve the experience of regulation.
The LDC needs to expand its engagement with local stakeholders. At the AGM we were pleased that Piotr Zukowski agreed to continue his engagement with the Paediatric Managed Clinical Network on behalf of the LDC. We see this role as increasingly important to ensure that the MCNs and other stakeholders are clear on the GDP offer on paediatric dental care.
The LDC still needs two volunteers from our membership to hold south west Londonwide relationships. The roles are:
- A training lead to engage with the Training Hubs and the postgraduate dental dean. This role will involve working with the Hubs to provide information to other clinical and care colleagues on dental care, to discuss non-clinical training offers to dentists, and through engagement the postgraduate dental dean on clinical training for dentists and members of the dental team.
- A lead to engage with the Special Care Dentistry MCN. Special Care dentistry is an increasingly important topic and ensuring that the LDC voice is heard at meetings, coordinating intelligence and keeping oral health on the agenda for the most vulnerable is a key priority in south west London.
If you are interested in either of these role please email contact@ldc.org.uk for more information.
