Agenda item

To consider a report from Leeds City Council’s Head of Governance and Scrutiny Support that introduces an update from NHS England on Access to NHS Dental Services across West Yorkshire. 

The report of the Head of Governance and Scrutiny support introduced an update from NHS England regarding progress made on access to dentistry services across West Yorkshire.

The Joint Committee previously considered the matters associated with Access to Dentistry across West Yorkshire in March 2017 and had received a supplementary document prior to the meeting, providing a summary of the key issues facing dentistry, actions taken to date and the proposed next steps.

The following attended the meeting:

-  Emma Wilson – Head of Co-Commissioning (Yorkshire and Humber), NHS England

-  Debbie Pattinson – Commissioning Lead for Urgent Care, NHS England

The Head of Co-Commissioning gave a brief introduction to the supplementary document provided and an outline of the key issues.

The Joint Committee’s discussions covered a range of matters, including:

·  Funding of £1.9M (over 3-years) had been made available on 1^st April 2018; with some services commencing the new approach on 1^st July 2018; however some services required additional time to secure additional staff – and new ways of working would commence at the end of July/early August.  Members of the Joint Committee requested details of the specific practices currently involved in the work outlined in the report and discussed at the meeting.

·  The natural end of existing urgent dental care contracts had been an opportunity to procure different providers to support better access to urgent dental care services and to refocus the care pathway to help improve access to regular dental services; thus reducing the need / demand for urgent care services.

·  The refocus brings investment in the NHS 111 service – dental nurses will assess callers and direct those to regular services where applicable; with more service provision to ensure any requiring urgent care are seen sooner. It was reported that the 111 service is often used by patients seeking access to a local dentist, but by the time they call they often require urgent care, particularly pain management.

·  Reference was made to recent NHS England and NHS Yorkshire & Humber public and stakeholder engagement and communications on urgent dental care. A comment that significant service changes and/or reconfiguration would be a matter for scrutiny was noted; the Joint Committee was assured that the refocus of access to dentistry was not “a service reconfiguration” and that NHS England would not miss the opportunity to engage with scrutiny on such matters.

·  The impact of the 0-2 age range focus of the ‘Starting Well’ programme, which aimed to address areas of greatest need. The pilot scheme in Hull and Wakefield had been successful and further discussions had been scheduled to help identify how to initiative could be rolled out into other areas.

(Councillor Hughes left the meeting at 4.50 pm)

The meeting became inquorate and the formal meeting closed at 4.50 pm

The remainder of the discussion continued for the information of those Councillors remaining at the meeting, with the remaining Councillors only able to make recommendation on the remaining business.

RECOMMENDATIONS

a)  To note the content of the report and the details provided at the meeting

b)  That the request for details of the specific practices currently involved in the work to improve access to appropriate dental care, outlined in the report and discussed at the meeting, be progressed accordingly.