Dental Services: Homelessness
(asked on 15th January 2020) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that homeless people have access to primary dental care.
NHS England has issued guidance making clear that lack of identification or proof of address is not grounds for refusing National Health Service primary care treatment, including general practitioner (GP), dental and eye care services. In these circumstances, individuals can use the primary care services’ address or an address of a hostel, where appropriate. Where this guidance is not being followed, cases should be brought to NHS England’s attention, as the commissioner should be able to reinforce the guidance locally. Ultimately, the commissioner can issue a remedial notice and can terminate a contract or practice that still does not abide by its obligations.
To help improve the commissioning of dental services for vulnerable people, including homeless patients, NHS England is developing a Commissioning Standard, which will consider options, such as looking at commissioning ‘time’ rather than treatments (measured through ‘units of dental activity’) to help incentivise high street practices to treat patients expected to need a greater investment of time, including homeless people.
NHS England will also be producing Primary Care Access Cards in early 2020. These will provide simple and clear information on how Gypsies Roma Travellers, refugees, asylum seekers and homeless patients can access services and their entitlements and address some of the key questions that are currently causing confusion with patients and in primary care. NHS England is also working with stakeholders to undertake a national review of access to general practice services. The review’s main objective is to improve patient access both in hours and at evenings and weekends and reduce unwarranted variation in experience.
The Government published its Rough Sleeping Strategy in August 2018 at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-rough-sleeping-strategy
The Department is working to deliver the health and social care commitments in the Strategy, with a focus on mental health and substance misuse services, as well as physical health services. We are providing £1.9 million to councils to test ways to improve access to health services for people with co-occurring mental ill-health and substance misuse problems who are currently, or at risk of returning to, sleeping rough. As a part of the NHS Long Term Plan, NHS England has committed to spending up to £30 million over five years on mental health services for rough sleepers.
Community pharmacy is also uniquely placed to help people who find it more difficult to access a GP or other NHS services and provides easy access to walk-in services without the need for an appointment. The Communing Pharmacy Contractual Framework for 2019/24 is at the following link:
This will transform the role of community pharmacy, embedding them as the first port of call for minor illness and health advice in England. Over the five-year period in which it will run, patients with minor illness will be referred from all entry points to the NHS to community pharmacy for advice, reassurance and any necessary over-the-counter treatments.