Availability of domiciliary dental care for the elderly

Abstract

PURPOSES OF THE INVESTIGATION: To find out if local nursing/residential home managers are experiencing any problems in obtaining domiciliary dental care for residents. To assess the availability of local GDS and CDS dentists for domiciliary dental care for the elderly and the range of treatments offered.

Basic procedures: Self-completing postal questionnaires distributed to 148 dentists and 80 nursing/residential home nurse managers.

Main findings: 71% of responding dentists undertook domiciliary visits but 43% of these were not accepting any new NHS domiciliary patients. Only 21% of those willing to visit would undertake any conservative treatment. Seventy per cent of nurse managers reported few problems in finding a NHS dentist, but the remaining 30% had found it difficult or impossible. Eighty-five per cent would find written guidelines helpful.

Principal conclusions: The number of elderly patients keeping natural teeth is steadily increasing. The rate of dental caries in institutionalised patients is significantly higher than those living in their own homes. The number of dentists in the area of this study who are accepting new domiciliary patients is rapidly decreasing and only one in five will provide conservative treatment. This is a deteriorating situation, which merits further investigation on a national scale and subsequent planning to address it.