A letter from Cathy Elliott
I am writing to say a huge thank you for your attendance at the NHS West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board (ICB) session on Tuesday 16 May in Halifax. The engagement session with ICB Board members that day was really welcomed within a matter of weeks of NHS West Yorkshire taking on the delegated commissioning for dental care services from NHS England.
The session provided an opportunity to hear about local people’s experiences of dental care and the service improvements required shared via Healthwatch. This enabled an open discussion between the Board and Healthwatch about the challenges facing people when accessing dental care ahead of the full Board meeting in the afternoon when improvements to the service across West Yorkshire were considered. I am grateful for your contribution to the session, particularly your honesty, to further our work together in oral health and dental care. Thank you.
Healthwatch colleagues explained that dental and oral health is the number one area of concern highlighted by local people and communities. Learning about local people’s experiences about accessing an NHS dental appointment and urgent care reminded us how very important this area of health is for everyone and that improvements to services are needed.
I have noted key points from our engagement session conversation including:
- The importance of making sure people with greatest needs are met and with access to specialist services
- Timings of routine appointments for existing dental patients and the regularity of these to potentially free up appointments for more people to access NHS dentists
- Preventing poor oral health in children, for example, active work via health visitors and in schools
- The contracting arrangements for dental practices
- Improved data and understanding of waiting lists
- Good dental access can highlight serious health illness sooner, such as mouth cancer
- The importance of joining up care with hospital services
- Carrying out risk assessments for people not accessing appointments
- Information sharing on the availability of NHS dentists and how to get an appointment.
The deep dive dental and oral health report and the film of the Board meeting in public on 16 May, which followed our session together, are on our website, in case of interest and for reference. The Board report included recommendations which were all approved, including evidence informed oral health prevention that supports a life course approach, investment in resources to commission NHS dentists, and supporting the development of a West Yorkshire dental workforce plan.
Flexible commissioning of dental services was highlighted throughout the session and in the Board meeting, and we have asked Ian Holmes, Director of Strategy and Partnerships for NHS West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board, to give you an update on work underway and to consider all your feedback in more detail. This will help to ensure we do all we can to work together to address the challenges and concerns people face as well as keeping in view opportunities to improve.
West Yorkshire Voice
Finally, we are passionate about making sure the voice of local people is central to our work and we have asked Healthwatch (the independent health and social care champion) across West Yorkshire to develop the West Yorkshire Voice to feed directly into decisions made about health and care. It will be developed in partnership with residents to reflect our diverse communities.
It will complement existing involvement mechanisms that are already in place at a local and West Yorkshire level, including via the voluntary and community sector. It will be a new way of working with people, communities and organisations that will not replace or duplicate what is already there.
The intention is to add to and build on existing approaches. This might be something that you, your family and friends might be interested in joining, and to find out more and join us, you can contact Healthwatch West Yorkshire on 0113 898 0035 or
email: info
Thank you again for attending the engagement session with NHS West Yorkshire Board members; we are grateful for the contribution you make to help to keep local people and communities healthy across West Yorkshire.
Yours sincerely,
Cathy Elliott, Chair of NHS West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board
A letter from Ian Holmes
I am writing as a follow up to the letter sent to you by Cathy Elliott, Chair of the NHS West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board on Tuesday 16 May.
Thank you for your attendance at the NHS West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board (ICB) engagement session in Halifax.
I want to write and update you on the Board meeting that followed where the delegated commissioning for dental care services from NHS England to our ICB was discussed.
The dental and oral health report and the film of the Board meeting in public on 16 May, are on our website, in case of interest and for reference.
The Board absolutely recognised the issues that were raised in the engagement session. We understand that access to NHS Dental Services can be difficult, and this is down to several systemic and long-standing issues, which we are working hard to address.
These include:
- Making sure we have the right focus on preventing poor oral health, by sharing and scaling up prevention schemes across West Yorkshire where inequalities exist
- Exploring the possibility of water fluoridation with local partners, such as West Yorkshire Combined Authority and the Department of Health and Social Care
- Maximising the budget and resources we have to best support peoples need – including expanding local flexible schemes so that dentists can operate more freely
- Taking a more proactive approach to the use of any dental budget underspend so that we can use the funding for patient care
- Developing a workforce plan that helps to address the recruitment and retention of people working in dentistry
- Strengthening the commissioning capacity within our ICB, so there is more support available to address the challenges people and communities face.
We are confident that these measures will make a positive difference to people’s lives. We also recognise we have a role in influencing national policy on dentistry, particularly around the limitations of the national contract. Flexible commissioning of dental services was highlighted throughout the Board meeting, and we are committed to doing all we can to move forward positively.
Thank you again for attending the NHS West Yorkshire Board meeting. We are very grateful for the time you spent with us.
Yours sincerely,
Ian Holmes, Director for Strategy and Partnerships NHS West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board