England’s Chief Dental Officer Pays Carlisle Dental Centre a Visit
Sara Hurley, chief dental officer for England, paid Carlisle Dental Centre a visit recently to see how emergency dental calls are dealt with by Dental Direct.
Ms Hurley was treated to a tour of the innovative dental facility and shown first hand how Dental Direct works.
Clinical director for specialist dental services at Cumbria Partnership NHS, Stephen Jones, was on hand to explain how the system works. There are plans to expand the service into the North East and it was beneficial for the chief dental officer to see it in action.
The 24-hour service provides patients in Cumbria with the opportunity to contact trained dental nurses. The calls are triaged and the team then works to find patients a suitable appointment. The phone lines are open seven days a week and all operatives are qualified dental nurses. The service takes calls from all over the county.
After watching the operatives in action, Ms Hurley admitted that she was very impressed with the efficiency of the system. She also noted that the nurses offered a personalised service and praised their communication skills. The calls will now be monitored so that the NHS can use them for training purposes going forward.
Mr Jones also took time to explain to Ms Hurley that the partnership was looking into updated referral methods and Ms Hurley said that it was excellent to see forward-thinking programmes in action. She also commented on plans to emphasise the importance of the role of pharmacies, especially when dealing with patients in pain outside of normal hours. She believes that pharmacies could be particularly beneficial in supporting services like NHS 101 when dealing with patients who need minor pain relief in the middle of the night, for example.
During her visit to the North West, Ms Hurley also visited the University of Central Lancashire’s dental school.
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