ABSTRACT
The Health and Social Care Act 2012 heralded wide reaching reforms intended to place clinicians at the heart of the health service. For NHS general dental practice, the conduits for this clinical leadership are the NHS England local professional networks. In Greater Manchester, the local professional network has developed and piloted a clinician led quality improvement project: 'Healthy Gums DO Matter, a Practitioner's Toolkit'. Used as a case study, the project highlighted the following facilitators to clinical leadership in dentistry: supportive environment; mentoring and transformational leadership; alignment of project goals with national policy; funding allowance; cross-boundary collaboration; determination; altruism; and support from wider academic and specialist colleagues. Barriers to clinical leadership identified were: the hierarchical nature of healthcare, territorialism and competing clinical commitments.
Subject(s)
Dental Care/organization & administration , Gingival Diseases/prevention & control , Leadership , Dentists/organization & administration , Gingival Diseases/therapy , Humans , Organizational Case Studies , State Medicine , United KingdomABSTRACT
This opinion piece considers an opportunity for primary dental care practitioners to work in partnership with public health teams to maximise the uptake of the NHS Health Check. Public Health England and Local Authority partners remain committed to offering the NHS Health Check to those aged 40-74 years old. The programme previously explored alternative points of delivery - such as community pharmacists. This piece discusses and reflects on the efforts within Manchester to use skill mix in primary dental care services and widen access to target individuals eligible for an NHS Health Check. The pilot schemes in Manchester illustrated the willingness and enthusiasm for primary care dentists to embrace change and work alongside new partners to deliver patient benefit beyond the provision of dental care. However, substantial barriers to implementation prevented the desired level of progress.
