Dental Project: What Our Volunteers Did
Background to the Project
The Dental Enter and View Project started from a Healthwatch report which came out earlier this year. The report Access to NHS Dental Health Services in Hertfordshire 2016 was produced jointly with Public Health. A number of themes were identified in the report including a lack of transparency around private vs NHS fees, and concerns around accessibility for those with a physical or sensory disability. That report provided a number of recommendations, which we included in our thinking when we devised the questionnaire for the pilot in Welwyn Hatfield District. This was done in collaboration with the NHS and Care Quality Commission locally.
Outcomes from the project
We completed the pilot in February and have since published a summary report on our website for anyone to read. Volunteers contributed to the pilot and will now play a central role in the next round of visits to dental practices in the St Albans and Harpenden area. We have already visited one dental practice and we will be visiting a further 6 practices in that area. This equates to roughly 25% of all practices in that part of Hertfordshire.
Our trained Enter and View Authorised Representatives – volunteers – will be leading the visits with a revised questionnaire for them to complete with dental practices.
Full Report
You can read the full report here.
You can find out more about our work Visiting Services here
