The provision of dental care for residents of care homes remains patchy, delegates at the Labour Party Conference heard this week.
Speaking at a BDA co-hosted fringe meeting on Monday evening, the chair of the BDA’s salaried dentists committee, Peter Bateman, said that the provision of oral healthcare for residents of such homes for the elderly remained highly variable.
He told delegates that people living in care homes typically have poorer oral health than their contemporaries, but are often unable to access appropriate dental care.
Explaining the work being undertaken in Sheffield by the Residential Oral Care Sheffield (ROCS) scheme, Dr Bateman said that he hoped the model adopted there – of salaried dental services co-ordinating the activity of general dental practitioners across the city and working closely with the staff of care homes – would be expanded both in and beyond the city.
He also called on the coalition government to keep its promise to take into account the ROCS model when developing new arrangements for dentistry in England, details of which are expected to be published later this year.
