The NHS Grampian Dental Plan

 

Dental Plan

The NHS Grampian Dental Plan is an ambitious and comprehensive strategy to improve the availability of NHS dental services in Grampian and to improve the oral health of the Grampian people. It was developed through a process of public and professional consultation. The Plan was completed in July 2008 and was approved by the NHS Grampian Board in August 08. The complete plan can be accessed by clicking Link opens in new windowhere.

Highlights of the Dental Plan include:

  • The construction of the Aberdeen Dental School to train new dentists. These dentists will be offered incentives to continue to work in Grampian once qualified.
  • The development of a communication and involvement plan to enable ongoing engagement of the public.  
  • A recruitment campaign to increase the number of Salaried NHS Dentists by 20 per year for the next four years.
  • By 2010, NHS Grampian aims to meet and exceed the Scottish target of 60% of Primary 1 and Primary 7 children with no dental decay. This will be achieved with the help of health promotion initiatives such as Link opens in new windowChildsmile. 
  • A target of an additional 25,000 child registrations by 2010.
  • A target of an additional 99,000 adult registration by 2012.

Since the inception of the NHS Grampian Dental Plan in August 2008, many significant achievements have been made.

 Improvements in NHS Dental Services

  • The new Aberdeen Dental School and Hospital was officially opened in January 2010
  • During 2008 and 2009 a total of 8 new dental practices opened in Grampian. These include the new dental centres in Huntly and Spynie Dental Centre in Elgin which opened in 2009
  • Dental practices continue to be modernised with new local decontamination units (centres for cleaning and sterilising instruments) being installed in over half of NHS Grampian dental practices
  •  A new Managed Clinical Network group was established to improve and integrate the dental service. 

Improvement in access to NHS Dental Services

  • An increase in the number of dentists, there are now 304 dentists working in Grampian. This is the highest ever recorded number of dentists working in Grampian
  • Improved access to emergency care in collaboration with NHS 24 and NHS Grampian's Dental Information and Advice Line (DIAL)
  • Introduction of a 12 week guarantee for routine care for children from date of contact
  • An increase in the number of NHS registrations. The total number of registrations since June 2007 until September 2009 was 61,508. In 2009 the number of registrations was increased by 33,000. Out of these new registrations 48,369 were adult and 13,139 were children 

Improvements in the oral health of children in Grampian

  • In 2010, Grampian reported 69.2% of Primary 1 Children free of dental disease when they started school. This is the best oral health ever recorded in Grampian for this age group and is higher than the national average. The level also exceeds the target for 2010 in the Dental Plan
  • NHS Grampian also exceeded the National targets for P7 children with 63.7% of children in Grampian with no dental decay in their permanent teeth
  • There are 146 students either studying for a dental nurse certificate or are about to complete their induction training in Grampian.  This is the highest number of dental nurses in training ever recorded in Grampian 

Improvements in adult dental health

  • NHS Grampian exceeded the National targets for improving adult oral health in Grampian with only 9.1% of adults in Grampian with no remaining natural teeth.

Improvements in Communication

  • Introduction of Dental Newsletter for dentists and dental and oral health professionals
  • NHS Grampian dental services website launched in May 2009