SimplyOne Dental’s Kids’ Club may be fun for participants, but it has a serious end game, too…
The art of great patient care is in the tailoring of the communication with any given demographic. When it comes to children, there is a very real need for practice teams to strike the right chord – both in their mode of engagement and in their timing.
In essence, the consensus view is to start as early as possible and make education fun by sparking the imagination and encouraging them to learn through play. The secret is sharing key messages so that a younger audience remembers and replicates.
Indeed, it is now widely considered that all of the above make for optimum clinical outcomes in the long term.
With a clear focus on the importance of paediatric dental care, the British Society of Paediatric Dentistry’s (BSPD) Dental Check by One campaign adds clarity to these ideals.
Initiated in 2017, Its key message is that the first visit to the dentist is an important one – an opportunity for a child to start a life of positive dental care and for parents to get advice on how to keep their child’s teeth healthy and strong.
And whether in surgery, school, nursery, hospital, or in the home, it is essential to regularly remind them of the importance of getting a child to the dentist by the age of one.
The team at SimplyOne Dental, located in Ashton and Droylsden Manchester, promises all of their patients that they are their ‘number one priority’.
As a mixed practice (over 90% NHS and around 10% private), its ethos is simple: to deliver excellent patient care.
And this extends to younger members of their community, too – even beyond the four walls of their practice.
The team recently staged a children’s oral health day at its local primary school, St John Fisher in Denton. The day was a huge success and supported by dental supply company, Dental Sky, whose team donated complimentary oral health products in goody bags to help SimplyOne Dental engage with their young hosts.
Kelly Doyle is the practice’s operations manager. A former dental nurse and practice manager, she drew on her experience in both clinic and admin to create an event that would have impact – on children and adults alike.
She says: ‘The oral health care of children is really important and if we teach children the basics at an early age – and encourage prevention – they will hopefully have very little or no caries.’
The practice team are keen advocates of the BSPD’s Dental Check by One principle and actively encourage parents to bring their children with them to appointments from birth – ‘just to get them used to smells, sounds and environment’, Kelly explains.
‘We advise children and parents to start brushing from first tooth eruption, offer dietary advice and expect parents to assist with brushing from a young age. We also suggest that all patients keep up with regular dental check-ups.’
The practice prides itself on delivering a first-class service and, as the oral health day demonstrates, ‘sometimes it's more than teaching the person; it needs to be dealt with at a community level with caregivers the focus’.
With figures showing there are still a large number of children failing to visit the dentist, it is important for Kelly that the team gets out into the local area via collaborations with schools, for example.
She says: ‘We regularly visit schools to deliver the correct dental messages and aim to be interactive and fun with the children so that they store the key messages we give them and continue these good oral hygiene habits back at home.
‘We like to give the children fun activity packs, with toothbrushes and toothpaste with the correct fluoride content, and we inform parents of the correct amount and, of course, offer the ‘spit, don’t rinse’ advice.
‘With this visit, we focused on key stage 1 and key stage 2 children and sent home diet sheets the week beforehand. We then went through sugar intake, explaining ‘good’ foods and ‘bad’ foods, as well as asking questions about how frequently they brush their teeth and explaining the most important times to brush.’
Not only did the team from SimplyOne Dental dress up as a tooth and toothpaste, they also took along some clothes for the children, too, who donned mini mock scrubs, masks and gloves and had fun with the mouth models.
‘We read stories about healthy teeth and bad teeth and let the children dress up, so they could learn through play. School is the ideal place to reach out to children and educate them on the importance of good oral health because we can deliver the message to many children all at the same time.’
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) recommends delivering oral health messages in a ‘variety of formats’ and SimplyOne Dental certainly applies this to its community activity. Children are incentivised in their oral health care with toothbrushing charts, certificates, stickers, toothbrushes, toothpaste and disposable mirrors. Imagery is important for the team, too, with colourful posters to catch children’s attention to draw them in to their learning.
At the oral health day, each child was sent home with a goody bag that contained a mask, gloves, toothbrush, toothpaste, disposable mirror, word searches, crosswords, a ‘find the hidden toothbrushes’ challenge and other interactive learning games. They also included practice information advising the SimplyDental was accepting patients.
In fact, the community outreach project had other benefits, too, proving a perfect opportunity for some effective dental marketing. On the back of the open day, six new patients joined the practice.
Kelly says: ‘it took a bit of planning and it was fantastic getting help from Dental Sky with their donations for the children’s goody bags. Feedback was great and the children have said that they really enjoyed it. The teachers told us that other dental practices had previously been in to teach the children, but that it had never been so interactive and that the way we did it they found really enjoyable.’
Back in the practice, the team tries to make the transition from classroom to surgery seamless by accommodating children’s need at every appointment.
Kelly says: ‘We are also part of the Healthy Living Dentistry (HLD), working alongside Public Health England and the Department of Health. It’s an initiative designed to ensure all health care givers – dentists, doctors, pharmacists and so on – are delivering the correct key messages across the board.’
The HLD programme builds on the success of the Healthy Living Pharmacy (HLP) Programme and relates to NICE guidelines supporting oral health promotion in dental practices.
It specifically recommends dental teams adopt a patient-centred approach and SimplyOne Dental understands this only too well.
Kelly explains: ‘We try to make appointments out of school hours and we also stage school holiday clubs, where we will dedicate a full day to seeing only children.
Whilst it may appear easy, making important child-friendly tweaks to the way the team practises can be challenging – but Kelly’s advice is simple: ‘Make it fun and interactive, deliver the correct key messages, offer lots of freebies and ensure the teachers and parents are all on board.’
