Leading Dentist Issues Reminder About Elderly Dental Care
One of the UK’s most prominent dentists has issued a warning over elderly dental care. Dr John Milne, chair of the British Dental Association’s General Dental Practice Committee, urged the government to prioritise dental care for the elderly during the process of reforming the dental contract.
Dr Milne said that oral health should be a priority for all patients and as elderly people have a high risk of developing oral health disease, it is particularly important that is taken into consideration as the government works on a new dental contract.
Dr Milne said that it is essential that the new contract includes proper provision for elderly patients and added that it was important that changes made to the existing contract take the needs of older people into account; he also said that the growing demand for complex restorative treatment among older people should be considered.
Dr Milne was speaking shortly after the pilot programme for the new dental contract was expanded to include more practices across the UK. The pilot programmes are focusing on several issues, including payment for dentists and promoting preventative oral healthcare and the findings of the projects will be used to shape the new contract.
In 2012, the BDA produced a document focused on the changing needs of elderly patients in response to concerns about how to provide care for the ageing population; the BDA made 21 recommendations in 2003 and representatives from the association claim that only seven have been met.
Robert Kinloch, chair of the British Dental Association’s UK Healthcare Policy Group, said that despite the fact that most people are aware of the ageing population, it is evident that elderly people are under-served in terms of oral healthcare and this needs to change in the future.
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