Suggested dental van idea for Devon parked

The idea to bring a dental van to Devon to help tackle the county’s significant dental crisis has been parked.

Health leaders thought a dental van could be useful in reaching communities with poor dental provision, as well as more isolated communities.

At a health and wellbeing board meeting in April last year, the timeframe for the arrival of the dental van was being “worked on”, with the board expected to be given an update as progress emerged.

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However, in response to questions from the Local Democracy Reporting Service, the county’s health service stated a van was not among its immediate priorities.

“NHS England are working closely with the government to consider future options for dental vans, but at this stage are only asking integrated care boards (ICBs) to take forward commissioning of van-based services where they have made a local determination that this would be the best option for their population,” a spokesperson for NHS Devon said.

“We do not believe a van is best for our population at the moment, so we are not pursuing this as a priority.
“The government has been clear that ICBs should focus on delivering more urgent dental care and we are aiming to deliver 24,000 more urgent appointments across Devon this year.”

The reversal in stance comes as Cornwall has just welcomed dental vans.

The Smile Together initiative is seeing mobile dental vans deployed to supermarket car parks in Cornwall, with a specific focus on veterans, the fishing community and school children who have waited significant lengths of time for appointments.

The NHS chief dental officer told the BBC the vans, which were funded by the local integrated care board, were “one element of a jigsaw puzzle that we’re trying to fix”.

The government has said it is aiming to tackle the national dental crisis by providing 700,000 more urgent dental appointments and that it wants to recruit new dentists to areas that need them more.

Labour has pledged to reform the dental contract, shifting the focus to prevention and the retention of NHS dentists.

It’s understood that the most common reason children aged five to nine are admitted to hospital is to have rotting teeth removed.