Enter and view: Right for Everyone Dental Practices Visits, Lambeth
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Healthwatch Lambeth conducted visits between 2015 and 2017, as part of the Right for Everyone project, to investigate how well community health services work for people with learning disabilities.
The programme was developed as there was wide-ranging evidence of inequalities experienced by this user group in accessing and receiving health care. Eight dental practices across the borough were visited with pre-arranged appointments. Fourteen authorised visitors conducted these visits, two at each venue.
A range of criteria was used to assess each dental practice via a checklist including physical accessibility, staff behaviours and attitudes, type and accessibility of information provided.
Recommendations made include: practices reviewing their signage to maximise the visibility of their service; that the special care service should develop an easy read introductory leaflet to services for patients; practices charging for copies of dental records should consider a flat fee for all formats to avoid penalising digitally excluded patients; all practices should develop procedures to ensure communication needs of patients are addressed and that the special care dentistry service should make its easy rad materials available to the Local Dental Committee to share with its members.
The King’s College Hospital Community Special Care Dentistry team addressed each recommendation in their responses and plans for adopting changes suggested.