Oral Health Care in Residential Care Homes
Summary:
A survey was sent out to all care home providers in addition to telephone calls to the homes in encourage participation in this piece of research.
A total of 65 care homes across the 2 boroughs responded and the key findings are as follows:
- The most commonly cited problem was related to broken, missing or ill-fitting dentures (48%)
- Just under half the care homes (30) do not have a local dental service providing routine care to residents.
- For those with no local dental service the managers advised they tried to register residents with their former dentists, tried to register at local high street dentists or used the emergency dental services.
- 40% across the 2 boroughs said they could not get home visits
- 5 homes across both sites said they had had to send residents to A&E due to not being able to access a dental service.
- For 50% of the Bolton homes oral care did not form part of the individuals care plan.
- Only a quarter of the homes offered staff any training in oral health, however 89% of the managers said they felt training in this area would be beneficial.
- 40% said the dental system did not work for them.
- When asked what could be done differently most respondents said they would like to see a programme that provides home visits as a standard for care homes and their residents.
Conclusions:
Our research shows that those living in residential care face serious difficulties in accessing appropriate services to help support oral health, prevent oral health problems or respond to oral health problems when they arise.
Current services are not responsive to needs and place unrealistic expectations on both residents and their carers with response to a) waiting times, b) expectations to attend regularly and c) assumptions about how oral health and hygiene is approached.
Relationships between care homes and dental service providers is poor with 50% stating they are unhappy with the dental care system.
Recommendations were made Nationally, regionally and locally following this project. Nationally we advised NHS England to engage with the care sector to establish guidelines and address the lack of information and training.
Downloads
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