Agenda item

Amanda Barbour, Looked After Children and Leaving Care Service, LCC/Caroline Waldron, East Lancashire Clinical Commissioning Group

To receive an update on the pilot.

Amanda Barbour, Permanence Service, Lancashire County Council and Caroline Waldron Safeguarding and Looked After Children, East Lancashire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) gave an update on the Rossendale Dental Pilot which commenced on 20 September 2021 and came about from an approach that was made by a Dental Practice within Rossendale raising concerns that not many children had returned for dental checks after the Covid pandemic.  An opportunity was identified for some collaboration between Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs), Children's Social Care and Dental Practices.  It is a six month pilot, and an evaluation will commence in January 2022 as a mid-point.  The pilot follows on from a report that had previously been presented to the Board where they were informed that Dental assessment data was at its lowest.  Since that report, it was confirmed that the dental assessment data had significantly improved, particularly since the pilot had commenced.

The presentation attached to the minutes provided an overview on:

The beginnings – how the pilot came about

Some interesting facts about dentists

What are the aims and objectives of the pilot?

How the pilot will meet these aims and objectives

Where is the pilot happening? Who with? When?

Next steps

A full bespoke training package has been produced by the Enhanced Child Looked After Team and this has been delivered to the Dentists and young people have been involved in that and there has been lots of social media communications around what children/young people think needs to be delivered in terms of training to Dentists, ie what they think Dentists need to know.  There is also an option for Dentists to provide a virtual tour which will help those young people, particularly those with anxiety around attending in an attempt to break down some of the barriers and is a key element in the pilot scheme.

It is hoped that following the six month pilot scheme in Rossendale, it will be rolled out across Lancashire and South Cumbria and in order to do that a Post Graduate Dental Research student from UCLAN and NHSE/I has been enlisted and will formally evaluate the pilot.  Feedback will be requested from children and young people and a number of ways to gather the information has been devised.  This will be formalised in a formal review after six months of the pilot and any improvements required will be addressed prior to rolling this out across Lancashire and South Cumbria.

Following the presentation, it was queried as to whether there was quantitative as well as qualitative outcomes that were being looked at in the six month timeframe.  It was noted that it would be quantifiably measured by the performance that will be monitored on a weekly basis in terms of the uptake of Dental Health Assessments for all children, however a bespoke dashboard has been developed just for the purpose of the Rossendale Dental Pilot.  Current figures showed that there had been a slight increase since starting in September 2021.  In the Rossendale footprint in August 2021 – 55.9% of children had an up to date dental check in the last 12 months and as of November 2021 there has been an increase to 61.3%.  In comparison to the overarching children looked after population across the Lancashire footprint in August 2021 52% of all children had an up to date dental assessment and in November 2021  59.2% had an up to date assessment.

The Board also noted that access to emergency dental provision is done via the normal route, either by themselves or support from their social worker, their carer or Personal Advisor, by contacting the Dentist whom they are known to.  Currently it is only NHS Dentists that are involved in the pilot and that is due to funding from the NHS England who commission the NHS dental provision.  In terms of information sharing and governance processes, this is something that has been explored as part of the pilot and information guidance has been sought in relation to data sharing if children/young people are moved around.  Solutions have been identified on how information can be shared effectively on young people in line with General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

In terms of the evaluation, it was confirmed that the Dentists themselves would be part of the evaluation and also after training, evaluation was requested from the Dental practices.

Early data shows that 10-15 year olds as well as those children who are placed with parents are less likely to visit the Dentist and make up around 20% of children who do not attend a Dentist, and this will help inform the second part of the roll out of the scheme and whether there needs to be more focused and targeted work with specific cohorts of children.

The Corporate Parenting Board were asked to acknowledge that two schemes have been run in the last year, one was in relation to initial health assessments which were really poor, and current figures are around 90% of children looked after have an up to date health assessment and the second is the dental assessments which were around 12% last year and are currently at 59.2% and in working collaboratively with a number of agencies, improvements are being seen.

Resolved:  i)  That the Board noted the update and congratulated everyone who was involved with the pilot scheme.

ii)  That Sam Gorton, Democratic Services Officer, Lancashire County Council on behalf of the Chair of Corporate Parenting Board, write a letter of thanks to all the Dental Practices in the Rossendale area for their engagement with the project.