Member Article

New Bradford oral surgery run for NHS by commercial provider cuts patient waiting times

A new oral surgery service at Eccleshill NHS Treatment Centre in Bradford promises to cut waiting times and reduce pain for people needing treatment for serious dental problems.

The centre on Newlands Way, which is run by Care UK on behalf of the NHS, has launched the service which offers advanced X-ray services as well as complex or multiple extractions and surgery on impacted teeth.

Care UK is a leading independent provider of health and social care, whose 20,000 doctors, nurses, therapist carers and support workers operate in communities across the UK. Its partnerships with NHS commissioning bodies are growing rapidly and the company is currently seeking to recruit more than 8,000 new team members across the country.

Christine Wardman, Care UK’s hospital director, said: “Last year we began to realise that there was a real shortage of oral surgery services for NHS patients living in the Leeds and Bradford area.

“Waiting times were getting longer and many nervous patients were faced with having difficult tooth extractions in their dentist’s chair or simply trying to live with the pain until they could get a hospital appointment.”

The team devised a service that could offer complex extractions such as the surgical removal of impacted teeth (including wisdom teeth), surgical removal of teeth and surgical removal of retained roots. The centre can offer general anaesthetic and sedation, depending on individual requirements.

The facility has three fully equipped theatres and a comprehensive range of diagnostic equipment and services, including MRI, CT, ultrasound, X-ray and a leading edge service, which carries out a panoramic dental X-ray of the upper and lower jaws in 2D – an option which Christine would like to see offered beyond the centre.

She said: “I’m now evaluating when we can make the services of the special X-ray machine available to local NHS dentists who may not have the resources to invest in such a high tech piece of kit, but who would like the in-depth picture it paints of a patient’s teeth and jaw.”

The service has already had a major benefit to the lives of patients. An example is Linda Knight, who was in severe pain caused by an impacted wisdom tooth and an abscess. Her dentist recommended an operation to remove the tooth in hospital because of the delicacy of her jaw, but she was distressed to discover that the waiting list was up to nine months.

Fortunately, Linda’s dentist then referred her to the Eccleshill Centre and she had the operation within a fortnight. She said: “The service was unbelievable and I feel as right as rain.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by David Gatehouse .