Free Dental Bus Comes To Town
Oxfordshire will soon be seeing their very own free mobile dental bus driving around the county to tackle growing concerns about dental health in the area.
The mobile unit is called the ‘tooth bus’ and has a computer, dental equipment and a dentists’ chair. The bus will visit many different towns within the county of Oxfordshire until February 2013. The mobile unit will be offering free dental check-ups to any person that lives in the county and who hasn’t seen an NHS dentist within the last 2 years.
A lack of NHS dental check-ups is a big problem in Oxfordshire and the county is ranked 120th out of 150 primary care trust in the UK. Only about half of the adults in Oxfordshire have been to see an NHS dentist within the past 2 years according to Department of Health statistics.
The idea behind the tooth bus is to improve the access to dentistry across the UK and to promote oral health. Dentist Manuel Perez Padron who works at Iffley Dental Practice thinks the bus is a great idea and spoke of the difficulty many people have with lack of access to NHS dental practices. He went on to discuss needing more dental access especially in deprived areas of the UK.
The tooth bus will be stopping at areas including Banbury, Bicester and Abingdon with no confirmed dates yet. To keep up to date with tooth bus news visit toothbus.co.uk.
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