SCOTTISH DENTAL NEWS DECEMBER 2006
CONTENTS
- HEALTH BOARD UPDATES
- SCOTTISH INDEX OF MULTIPLE DEPRIVATION (SIMD)
- DEPRIVED AREA ALLOWANCE
- SCOTTISH DENTAL ACCESS INITIATIVE
- RENT RE-IMBURSEMENT
- NHS COMMITMENT
- ORTHODONTICS
- PART TIME
- DENTAL STUDENT BURSARY UPDATE
- IT UPDATE
- DENTAL CLINICAL & SPECIAL WASTE
NHS BOARD UPDATES
NHS GRAMPIAN
ABERDEEN DENT AL INSTITUTE
On 6 November Deputy Minister for Health and Community Care, Lewis Macdonald opened officially the £4m state of the art Aberdeen Dental Institute, the largest to date of the new dental facilities linked to the dental action plan. The institute brings together 3 major components (service provision, training and post-graduate education) into one building.
The Institute comprises:-
- Argyll Dental Practice which has four surgeries for normal NHS treatment to be used by salaried dentists including a salaried specialist. This service will be run as a busy dental practice and also as an access centre for those who require urgent care. Services will co-ordinate closely with the emergency dental services provision in Grampian but will start primarily to register NHS patients from Grampian's centralised waiting list.
- Student Outreach Centre offers space for eight final year undergraduate dental students from the Dundee Dental School to carry out dental services under supervision. The whole of the final student year at Dundee will rotate through the centre. Students will normally spend a week at a time in Aberdeen and the centre will take patients who have consented to be treated by students. The centre receives referrals from primary care services including the Argyll Practice. These patients are then assessed for suitability for student care by experienced staff.
- Aberdeen Dental Education Centre is an NHS Education Scotland facility directly linked to the above two centres. This centre provides multi-professional education and training for dental healthcare workers. It brings together into one centre all educational courses for dental professionals in the North East including pre and post-qualification dental nurse training, education and training for the other dental care professionals such as therapists, hygienists and receptionists, Dental Vocational Training, and continuing professional development courses for dentists and a range of initiatives around the Action Plan. The facilities to support this training are extensive including seminar rooms lecture theatre, a clinical skills unit and multi terminal computer facilities. These facilities will be available also to the undergraduates at the outreach centre.
NHS HIGHLAND
Deputy Minister for Health and Community Care, Lewis Macdonald, opened officially the new 5 surgery Lochshell Dental Clinic in Wick & the recently extended Culloden Dental Clinic on 27 November 2006.
Both projects were funded through the Primary & Community Care Premises Modernisation Project.
At present there are 6 NHS Highland salaried dentists working within Caithness and each of these dentists will work either full-time or part-time within the new facility in Wick.
The construction for the extension at the Culloden Dental Clinic was reduced to 12 weeks with the use of modular units which demonstrated good value for money. Since opening on 24 October the practice has registered over 300 patients and anticipates that within 18 months and pending further recruitment a total of 3,000 additional patient registrations will be achieved.
NHS DUMFRIES & GALLOWAY
NHS Dumfries and Galloway report that since March this year they have recruited 23 new general dental practitioners - 18 independent contractors and 5 salaried general dental practitioners. This has made a substantial difference to patients' ability to access NHS dental services in the area.
CHILDSMILE (WEST)
In the first issue of the newsletter we informed you that we had secured dedicated time and support from Margie Taylor, NHS Lanarkshire and Graham Ball, NHS Fife and professional groups to implement the various programmes targeted at improving children's oral health. One such initiative is Childsmile the project to link all the oral health improvement programmes.
The three main components of the comprehensive programme are:-
- pre school health promotion and tooth brushing programmes in nurseries and schools
- demonstration programme West - prevention from birth
- demonstration programme East - nursery and school preventive programme
The success of Childsmile (West) is dependent on the commitment of and partnerships amongst the families, Health Visitors, Dental Health Support Workers and participating general dental practices. Each group has a unique role to play in the delivery and success of the Programme. Evaluation of the project will be undertaken by the Childsmile Evaluation Board with representatives from the Universities of Glasgow, Dundee and St Andrews and also NHS Board representatives.
On 14 September, Andy Kerr, Minister for Health and Community Care visited a dental practice in Hamilton, one of over 70 dental practices participating in Childsmile, to launch Childsmile (West). This is a 3-year demonstration programme designed to improve the oral health of young children within identified deprived communities in Greater Glasgow and Clyde, Lanarkshire and Ayrshire and Arran.
Childsmile (East) is due to be launched formally in early 2007.
SCOTTISH INDEX OF MULTIPLE DEPRIVATION (SIMD)
What you need to know.
The Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) identifies small area concentrations of multiple deprivation across all of Scotland. It has replaced the Carstairs Deprivation Category (DEPCAT) as the key indicator for effective targeting of policies and funding where the aim is to wholly or partly tackle or take account of area concentrations of deprivation. The meaning of 'multiple deprivation' is that more than one social or economic factor is taken into consideration in relation to defining an area's relative socio-economic or deprivation status.
The SIMD was updated for 2006 on 17 October 2006. The SIMD assesses the population in each 'small area' on 37 indicators across seven domains: Current Income, Employment, Health, Education Skills and Training, Geographic Access to Services (including public transport travel times for the first time), Housing and a new Crime Domain.
The 'small areas' used in the SIMD are known as 'data zones' which enable small pockets of deprivation to be identified. The data zones, which have an average population size of 769, are ranked from most deprived (1) to least deprived (6,505) on the overall SIMD and on each of the individual domains. The result is a comprehensive picture of relative area deprivation across Scotland.
Links for more information:
Technical reporthttp://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2006/10/13142913/0
General Resultshttp://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2006/10/13142739/0
DEPRIVED AREA ALLOWANCE
Work on this scheme is now in the final stages and the allowance will in the first instance be based on the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation. It is intended that the allowance will in the future be based on the patient post code. Further details will follow shortly.
SCOTTISH DENTAL ACCESS INITIATIVE (SDAI)
Work on the revision of the SDAI scheme to provide for buying or relocating existing NHS dental practices in order to maintain general dental service provision in an area is currently being finalised and a PCA providing full information will be issued shortly.
RENT RE-IMBURSEMENT
NHS: 2006 PCA(D)11, which provides information on reimbursement of dental practice rental costs for 2006-07 onwards, was issued on 7 December to NHS Boards for distributing to all general dental practitioners. Payment of rent re-imbursement will be made automatically on a quarterly basis to designated dentists within NHS committed dental practices.
NHS COMMITMENT
SPECIALIST ORTHODONTIC PRACTICES
Agreement has now been reached on the criteria for measuring NHS commitment for specialist orthodontic practices. Full details about this will be contained in a PCA which will issue shortly.
PART TIME GENERAL DENTAL PRACTITIONERS
Agreement has been reached on the future treatment of part-time dentists for the purposes of determining a practice's NHS commitment. Full details about this will be contained in a PCA which will issue shortly.
DENTAL STUDENT BURSARY UPDATE
In the August newsletter we reported that a new dental bursary would be introduced for dental students studying at the Dundee and Glasgow dental schools. On Wednesday 6 September, Deputy Minister for Health and Community Care, Lewis Macdonald visited Dundee Dental School where he launched formally the dental undergraduate bursary scheme.
The intention of the scheme is to recruit and retain dentists for the NHS in Scotland. Every undergraduate at a dental school in Scotland will be able to apply for a bursary as long as they are able to commit to working in NHS Scotland dental services for an agreed number of years.
The bursary offers £4000 per year of study from year 2 onwards to dental undergraduates on the condition that they undertake 5 years (or part time equivalent) of dental work in the NHS in Scotland, beginning within one year of graduation.
Since its introduction the scheme has been highly successful and approximately 350 students have already applied for the bursary. This equates to over 60% of eligible students applying in the first 2 months since the project was launched.
DENTAL WORKFORCE & TRAINING
NHS Education for Scotland (NES) has an important role in developing and sustaining the education and training for the NHS dental workforce. And Scotland is the only UK country to invest in this area on an ongoing basis.
NES led initiatives to develop the entire dental team include:
Dental Students - the number of student places has been increased to ensure an output of 135 dentists per year. This minimum output will be exceeded from July 2008 and for the foreseeable future. The number of dental students are now higher than at any time in the recent past.
Newly qualified dentists - retaining graduates in Scotland is important this is why the dental bursary was introduced for this year. All year 2 onwards dental students at the Scottish dental schools can apply for a bursary for each of their four clinical years. And retention rates are increasing: in 2005, 84% of Scottish graduates took up posts in Scotland compared with 52% in 1999.
Therapist students - Therapist training is being increased to achieve an output of 45 graduates per year by 2010. New facilities for training are planned for Edinburgh, Inverness, Dumfries and Coatbridge. NES is on target to exceed the required target of 45 graduates.
Dental Nurses - The strategy for basic dental nurse training has been finalised and the infrastructure is being developed to deliver new places. An additional 200 student dental nurse places have been created.
Vocational Training - training places for dentists have increased. In 2006 the number of dental vocational training places exceeded the number of dental graduates with 152 year one training places filled against the Action Plan target of 145 compared to 113 in 2004. The amount of VT numbers issued in the previous six years has increased by 114%,
NES are also closely involved in many of the major capital developments in the pipeline including:
- Edinburgh Dental Institute - estimated completion mid 2007
- Dundee, Kings Cross - Spring 2007
- Kilmarnock - Summer 2007
- Perth - Autumn 2008
- Coatbridge - Autumn 2008
IT UPDATE
The GDS IM&T pilot project has now been successfully completed, with the forty pilot practices continuing to utilise the managed service environment.
The Practice Infrastructure roll out to the remainder of GDS practices in Scotland will commence imminently. Each practice will require:
- a site survey to determine requirements, locations of work to be carried out etc
- cabling, including installation of local area network if required, either cabled or wireless dependent on the results from the survey
- N3 installation, which is a two-stage process. At the initial visit, the required line will be provided and the second visit will be the technical configuration and testing of the service
- installation of hardware
The roll out schedule is:
Practice Surveys Dec 06 - Mar 07
Pilot Practice Revisits Dec 06 - Feb 07
Cabling Feb 07 - Oct 07
N3 Apr 07 - Jan 08
Hardware May 07 - Feb 08
Training & support May 07 onwards
Practice surveys will commence imminently with roll out schedules being sent by the IM&T project team to NHS Boards and practices as soon as they are available.
What is N3?
N3 is the secure NHS network that connects all health care providers like GP practices, hospitals etc and also national NHS systems. It is simply a high-speed network that enables secure clinical communication between healthcare entities. It is the crucial building block to the future vision of dentists using clinical systems provided with accurate and up to date information via links to national systems (e.g. CHI etc).
Example early benefits of N3 include:
- Ability to exchange secure clinical emails with dental hospitals, GP practices, fellow dentists etc
- Allowing EDI to be further developed to utilise N3 meaning subscriptions to global crossing can be removed at a later date
- Internet access that provides many benefits like access to dental training or research material, ordering dental supplies online etc.
Longer term N3 will allow access to national systems such as CHI and SCI Gateway for electronic referrals. It will also allow a seamless two-way electronic payments service with PSD.
Community and Salaried Dental Services
13 out of 14 NHS Boards are now live with at least 1 Community or Salaried Dental Clinic with the Kodak R4 system. The project team are working closely with the remaining NHS Board to ensure they also go live as soon as possible.
DENTAL CLINICAL AND SPECIAL WASTE
On 13 October 2006 a letter was issued from the Scottish Executive Health Department, to all NHS Board Chief Executives, copied to Dental Action Plan Lead Officers, advising them of their NHS Board's allocation of funding for the dental clinical and special waste uplift for 2006 -2007. The allocations to NHS Boards were made based on the details submitted by NHS Boards on their expected costs.
RAPID IMPLEMENTATION - Well done and Thank You
The dental bursary scheme and Aberdeen Dental Institute were established less than 18 months after the action plan was launched. Within a relatively short timescale these projects have been implemented and are now fully developed projects linked to the Dental Action Plan.
This could not have been achieved without the excellent joint working and partnership between many people throughout the Health Service, Educational organisations and the Scottish Executive. Ray Watkins, Chief Dental Officer would like to take this opportunity to thank all those who contributed to the success of these two schemes and to those involved in the many other projects which are being developed as part of the dental action plan.
CHIEF DENTAL OFFICER
Having been with the Health Department for over 10 years, Ray Watkins, Chief Dental Officer announced his intention to return to NHS Scotland and develop his professional role there.
Ray Watkins will continue to play a valuable role in delivering the dental action plan for Scotland and will remain in post until his successor is in place.
Scottish Executive Health Department Contacts
0131 556 8400
Head of Primary Care Division Jonathan Pryce
Chief Dental Officer Ray Watkins
Dental Branch Staff
Eric Gray
Senga Robertson
Lynne Morrison
Donna Bryce
Sheila Taylor