Dental Public Health In Action: Putting Oral Health on the Local Public Health Agenda.

Oral health is a key public health issue across England. In Wakefield in the north of England, local data suggested the oral health of local children was significantly worse than the national average. This paper describes the work undertaken by Wakefield Council to strategically address this issue. A structured process was adopted. Key lessons include; having senior ownership from the Director of Public Health, partnership working across all key stakeholders, utilising dental public health expertise from Public Health England and the use of extensive engagement with stakeholders. Through this work, oral health is now identified with greater importance in Wakefield as a public health issue. Actions are now strategically co-ordinated across stakeholders to improve oral health in local children.

Development of a managed clinical network in oral medicine.

Oral medicine is concerned with the oral health care of patients with chronic, recurrent and medically related disorders of the oral and maxillofacial region, and with their diagnosis and non-surgical management. For historical reasons care for conditions falling within the scope of oral medicine practice has been inconsistent with limited planning of clinical services. Managed Clinical Networks (MCNs) bring advantages to all stakeholders with a positive impact on patient pathways and access to equitable and quality care across a network of providers working in a coordinated way to make best use of NHS resources. MCNs provide a framework to address the limitations of legacy arrangements and are very relevant to dentistry. Here we describe oral medicine MCN development in Yorkshire and the Humber within the framework of the Five year forward view NHS policy. A step-wise approach is being taken across the region to introduce an MCN model that reflects cooperative working between oral medicine, oral surgery, oral & maxillofacial surgery and other stakeholders. Preliminary data are already informing how a regional oral medicine MCN can be further developed with the potential for translation of the lessons learned to other regions.