Healthwatch press release 22/6/19 - Oral and Dental Health in Care Homes in Brighton and Hove
‘SMILING MATTERS’
Oral and Dental Health in Care Homes in Brighton and Hove
Healthwatch Brighton and Hove and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) are calling for Care Homes, the City Council, and the NHS to increase the number of homes visited by dentists and promote better training for Care Home staff.
Healthwatch has discovered that in Brighton and Hove, from the homes we visited:
- 55% of homes have no visiting dentist but 91% of residents are not well enough to visit a Dentist Surgery.
- 48% of care home staff do not carry out routine oral health checks on admission.
- 37% care home staff have had no training in oral and dental health (47% nationally).
- 41% of care home staff did not know if their care home had a policy covering Oral and Dental Health.
- Specialist training improves Oral and Dental Health, but the training is not compulsory.
Brighton and Hove provide an ‘Oral Health Promotion Team’ giving specialist training for Care Home staff. 20% of the homes we visited had benefited from that specialist training, provided by Sussex Community NHS Foundation Trust (SCFT). Checking against four key quality measures all these homes scored higher than Care Homes who had not received the training.
In 2018/19 the Brighton and Hove Oral Health Promotion Team visited 31 Care Homes, training 203 staff.
David Liley, Healthwatch Brighton and Hove, Chief Officer said today:
Doctors and the CQC have told us that Oral and Dental Health often reflects overall Health and Wellbeing. Care Homes in the City face massive challenges recruiting and training staff and we would not seek to criticise them unduly.
It is reassuring that around 80% of Care homes staff reported that their residents had regular help with oral and dental health. But our findings, and those of the CQC national report do give cause for concern.
Not enough of these homes have a visiting dentist, staff awareness is patchy, and more specialist training would make a difference in the quality of care
This local ‘deep dive’ by Healthwatch is released on the same day as an equivalent national review by the Care Quality Commission [CQC] ‘Smiling Matters’. This shows Brighton and Hove performing around the same level as larger national sample of Care Homes.
Healthwatch Brighton and Hove volunteers visited 20 care homes in Brighton and Hove, spoke to 111 care home residents and 75 care staff. Care Home residents included frail older people, younger adults, and people or all ages with long-term physical and mental health conditions.
The CQC national review of Oral Health, ‘Smiling Matters’, found very similar results to the local Healthwatch review in Brighton and Hove. Their main findings:
- The majority (52%) of care homes visited had no policy to promote and protect people’s oral health.
- Nearly half (47%) of care homes were not providing any staff training to support people’s daily oral healthcare.
- 73% of residents’ care plans we reviewed only partly covered or did not cover oral health at all – homes looking after people with dementia being the most likely to have no plan in place.
- 17% of care homes said they did not assess people’s oral health on admission.
CQC ‘Smiling Matters’ June 2019
See Healthwatch Brighton and Hove report , as well as the national CQC reports
CQC Dental Report - Smiling Matters - Full Report
CQC Dental Report - Smiling Matters - Summary Report
For Comment and Interviews please contact
David Liley, Chief Officer Brighton and Hove on 07931755343 or dliley@healthwatchbrightonandhove.co.uk
