8 Oral Health & Dentistry 2024 n 2016, The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) acknowledged issues around oral health for adults living in care homes. Recommendations around oral care plans, staff training, mouth care and availability of services were highlighted. The Care Quality Commission (CQC) also found a gap in oral health provision in care homes. Oral health was highlighted again in 2018 by Healthwatch Derbyshire, who also identified similar gaps along with lack of awareness of the importance of good oral hygiene practices. Public Health in Derbyshire have commissioned an Oral Health Promotion Service since 2012 when responsibility for health improvement was allocated to local authorities. This service aims to improve, maintain, and reduce oral health inequalities within the population of Derbyshire. NHS England Oral Health Improvement Funding has enabled Public Health and partners to explore opportunities to expand the oral health promotion work to address a wider range of issues across targeted groups. In response to the gaps in oral health in care homes. Derbyshire’s Oral Health Promotion Service developed an oral health accreditation package to pilot with 16 Derbyshire County Council led and one privately run care home, with an overall bed reach of 438 residents. The Your Smile Matters (YSM) Accreditation is a holistic approach to enabling care home staff to provide quality oral health support to the residents in their care. Each care home must achieve certain standards within a year (by July 2024) in order to gain the YSM accreditation. To gain the accreditation status each care home was supported by the oral health promotion team to meet a set of simple, yet qualitative oral health standards around: • Oral health assessments for each resident. • Using current evidence based guidance to underpin good oral health practice. • Adopting a whole care home approach to promoting and evidencing the promotion of oral health. • Staff to receive training to enable them to support residents with quality oral health care and signposting to the right dental service (depending on needs). Each care home was offered face-to-face and Microsoft Teams training. This took a total of six months to deliver and 289 staff were trained. The training offer ranged from one to four 1.5-hour sessions per setting, depending of staff numbers. The training was modelled around the latest Oral Health in Care Homes toolkit and included templates for oral health policy, assessments, NICE guidance and specific literature for residents and staff around oral health and complex conditions such as dementia. The overall aim was to develop a simple and sustainable, nonclinical programme to address oral health inequalities at local level. Outcomes to the programme included: AIS-Dec24019 I A community initiative designed to ensure the oral wellbeing of care home residents, Derbyshire’s Oral Health Promotion Team recently gained notoriety in the Oral Health and Dentistry Awards 2024 • 289 Staff upskilled in the use of oral hygiene aids to promote independence and dignity in mouth care, • 14 care homes successfully gained the YSM accreditation status. • All the cohort of care homes now have a network with Derbyshire’s oral health promotion service to build on and maintain accreditation status. • All the care homes have an oral health policy based on the latest Gov.UK Oral Health in Care Homes Toolkit. • Handovers now include oral health issues. Mouth care is documented daily in greater detail and staff are promoting oral health using a whole setting approach. • Staff report that they are now checking the mouth rather than just the teeth. Sequence charts have been developed and displayed in bathrooms for residents. • Toothbrushes now monitored and changed every three months or sooner depending on wear. • New activities in place to further promote oral health, including coffee mornings, newsletters and website information, plus social media posts. • The pilot demonstrates a collaborative and sustainable approach to addressing the oral health needs of this vulnerable target group. Following on from a successful pilot funding has been secured to extend the reach of the programme. With a further cohort of 25 care homes signed up for the 2025 programme. For its simplistic yet impactful approach and dedication of a small, yet wide reaching oral health promotion team in ensuring the oral health needs of this vulnerable group are embedded within the aging well agenda, Derbyshire’s Oral Health Promotion Team was recently recognised in the Oral Health and Dentistry Awards 2024 and rewarded with the title of Best Emerging Community Oral Health Initiative – UK. Contact: Julie Upton Company: Derbyshire’s Oral Health Promotion Team Website: Oral Health Promotion (DCHS) Best Emerging Community Oral Health Initiative – UK
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