Dear L.D.C members.
As you probably know I have been appointed the chairman of the Local Dental Network for the Humber and North Yorkshire area.
The principle of the L.D.N is to guarantee a greater level of clinical input in to the commissioning of all primary care dentistry including out of hours, community dentistry and the commissioning of secondary care dental services which is mainly oral surgery but does include orthodontics.
The creation of the L.D.N will allow for a more direct interface between commissioning and clinical advice. This will hopefully lead to more balanced decision making that is clinically driven.
Many of you will correctly say that managed dental networks have been around for ages and have had only minimal impact on service delivery. The difference this time is that the L.D.N is right at the centre of commissioning working closely with the Area Team, in particular giving the clinical advice and guidance required to support robust commissioning of oral health services.
The roles of the L.D.N are really only just beginning to evolve. One of these roles will be to communicate national policy and to feedback information on this policy. The L.D.N will also have a key role in the local organisation of this policy. The LD.N will provide clinical guidance and look to clinicians locally for innovative ideas to solve local dental health issues.
The L.D.N will work closely with existing managed care networks and look to facilitate the creation of new networks where there is presently no network existing. The L.D.N will then access more specialised advice where necessary from these networks. The three L.D.C’s are very well placed to provide advice to the LD.N and will play a very important role in the future development of services. The difference now though is that I hope the LDC’s can work with the L.D.N to develop solutions to existing problems and drive improvements in dental care services in the region.
Shortly the L.D.N will be constructing a work plan. I would be grateful if the LDC’s could discuss possible items for the work stream that you consider a priority. These suggestions need to produce outcomes that benefit patients. The LDN will also look closely at suggestions that de-burden practices in terms of ineffective workload. Please use your discretion in filtering these suggestions and then forward them to me through your individual secretaries.
I hope to attend many of your individual LDC meetings in the future.
Best wishes.
Simon Hearnshaw.