It was a real pleasure to attend the Denplan roundtable event in parliament this week, to celebrate the launch of their ‘Future of Dentistry’ Report and contribute to the discussion. The central focus of the report is to focus on ‘Unlocking solutions to improving oral health’.
The event was hosted by Catherine Rutland Clinical Director of Denplan and Simplyhealth, Chaired by Stephen Hancocks OBE and supported by the Liberal Democrat MP Helen Morgan. The Report presented an overview of the Oral Health of the UK, the challenges impacting dental care, the impact of poor oral health, the provision of dentistry across the UK, why preventative oral healthcare must be prioritised, unlocking the solutions to improve oral health, the need to empower and elevate the entire dental workforce, the need to prioritise and expand preventative care initiatives and to ensure financial sustainability and reform funding models.
This report follows on from the 2012 Report and is a welcome publication, which considers the whole team. A small number of representatives were invited to the launch and asked to discuss specific matters on behalf of the group of registrants that they represented. It was important for us to relate to dental nurses across all settings and in relation to the second point of dental nurse training, a broader discussion was had about the various qualifications available across the 4 nations and the differences that they portray in the field. A key point raised was about being valued.
This was a welcome opportunity to discuss thoughts on the current position of the profession and to push home the thoughts and feelings of dental nurses.
A huge thanks to Catherine Rutland fir the invitation.