NHS Mobile and Alternative Dental Services

NHS England has published this Prior Information Notice in relation to the NHS Mobile and Alternative Dental Services.<br/><br/>The Covid-19 pandemic impacted provisions of dental services and although recent data indicates some improvement, there remains more work to be done to improve provisions across England.<br/><br/>In February 2024, NHS England and the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) launched a joint Dental Recovery Plan to provide more than 1.5 million additional NHS dentistry treatments or 2.5 million NHS dentistry appointments. Included in the plan is the commitment to deploy mobile dental vans to contribute to a proportion of these targets, as well as ‘offering appointments to patients in targeted rural and coastal communities, starting later this year in the most under-served areas.’<br/><br/>NHS England is therefore keen to understand the range of services available to achieve this and to realise the ambitions of the Dental Recovery Plan.<br/><br/>We are aware of the limited availability of vans and workforce to deliver mobile dental services and so alongside the provision of vans and/or workforce, we are exploring other options such as (but not limited to), the provision of non-van solutions, including the use of local facilities for pop-up services. We are keen to think creatively on how we can best support this target population.<br/><br/>Further information regarding this project can be found on Atamis e-sourcing portal https://health-family.force.com/s/Welcome.