Improving oral health

During the meeting at the Peninsula Schools of Medicine and Dentistry, attendees discussed a variety of issues including the challenges to improving oral health in Plymouth, what can be done to improve oral care services, and agreed to pursue a number of activities in the next few months.

Plymouth University Peninsula School of Dentistry is part of Plymouth University Peninsula Schools of Medicine and Dentistry. It trains student dentists from A-level and is innovative in its approach – it was the first and remains one of very few dental schools in the UK to train future dentists in the primary care environment, and it is seen as the exemplar for the future of dental training.

It has recently established Peninsula Dental Social Enterprise (PDSE), the first time in the world that an education provider has incorporated a clinical entity into a social enterprise.  PDSE runs Peninsula School of Dentistry’s four Dental Education Facilities (DEFs), where students treat NHS patients under the supervision of qualified dental professionals. The DEFs have already impacted positively on oral health in the region – thanks to the programme, to date more than 13,500 people in Devon and Cornwall have access to NHS dental treatment where they may not have done so before.