Oral Health Policy Network

King’s College London Researchers studying tooth decay (dental caries) and their international partners have been working as, and with, the Alliance for a Cavity-Free Future (a King’s-led dental charity with global reach, chaired by Professor Nigel Pitts), and, in collaboration with the Policy Institute at King’s, using their ‘Policy Lab methodology’ have developed a series of three, very successful, ‘Dental Policy Labs.’

The ‘Dental Policy Lab’ has been a successful, dynamic initiative first launched in 2017 and each time, has brought together a diverse group of international experts, challenging them with solving a pressing global issue within both clinical practice and public health over a 24-hour period. Previous Dental Policy Labs have explored and addressed significant questions and have had immediate impacts on international health policy. For example, the 2017/18 Labs saw the French National Health Service (Assurance Maladie), the ICDAS / ICCMS™ Group and the FDI Chief Dental Officers/Dental Public Health Section taking action based on the Lab’s findings.

The latest report has now been published. Its title is ‘Towards Oral and Dental Health through Partnership: How can the oral health and dental industries benefit from enabling positive behaviour in caries prevention and control amongst patients and the public?’ which captures the overarching policy question addressed by the Lab. The report details the discussions and findings of the third and final Dental Policy Lab, lists the broad range of internationally influential academics and industry experts, and provides a strategy for implementing the findings of not only this Lab, but the outputs of all three through the new ‘King’s College London/ACFF Dental Policy Lab Network.’

Professor Nigel Pitts, Chair of ACFF Global commented that “The third Dental Policy Lab was unique, and exciting, and brought together a range of people who do not normally have the opportunity to collaborate.” Professor John Girkin (Durham University and NirVisio Ltd.), a participant of the Dental Policy Lab echoed this, confirming that “Getting together the large range of people that are in this Lab, from the people at the top of public health through to the people that are at the top of the companies through to the people like me that invent things, and bringing them all in the same room at the same time and hearing different people’s perspectives, this is a huge benefit.”

Each Lab has seen enthusiastic ‘buy-in’ from all delegates, and this keenness was once again shown by attendees at the latest Lab, particularly in forming the new King’s College London/ACFF Dental Policy Lab Network in order to drive forward the plan of advancing the four key areas (identified in the report’s summary) in collaboration with the King’s Global Collaboratory for Caries Management, with the end goal of achieving a cavity-free future worldwide.

The Dental Policy Lab 3 full report can be viewed here:  https://doi.org/10.18742/pub01-024   (click through for access to the full report)

In 2019, the ACFF was invited to join a group of NGO’s and Policy change advocates who are looking to put Oral Health onto the agenda for the UN General Assembly HLM on Universal Health Coverage which will take place the day before the General debate in September 2019. This group has aligned and published a statement expressing the concerns over the need for Oral Health to be included in the definition of Universal Health Coverage which will be presented to relevant stakeholders for discussion around the UN General Assembly HLM.

‘How can we create and implement acceptable prevention-based dental payment systems to achieve and maintain health outcomes?’

This question was the focus of the second ACFF Policy Lab, held in conjunction with the King’s College London Dental Institute and the Policy Institute at King’s. The meeting took place in London on the 23-24th July 2018 and brought together 35 participants from around the globe.

The meeting followed on from the success of the 2017 Policy Lab, ‘Towards a Cavity-Free Future: How do we accelerate a policy shift towards increased resource allocation for caries prevention and control?’. The 2017 report can be found here: https://bit.ly/2Q47mSt

Participants came together for this two day meeting to focus on addressing the complexities of designing dental payment systems which better encourage and reward preventive treatment. Government officials and policy influencers, along with practitioner groups, health economists, academics, public health groups and NGOs were among the handpicked attendees brought together to initiate this discussion, called for as one of the ‘next steps’ following the publication of the 2017 Policy Lab report.

On July 28-29^th 2017, the ACFF facilitated the first in a series of 2 day Policy Lab meetings. With participants from around the world, and with the involvement of multiple Chief Dental Officers, Public Health groups, the BDA and representatives from across all faces of dentistry, the focus of the session was to answer the question ‘How do we accelerate a policy shift towards increased resource allocation for caries prevention and control?’

The success in bringing together such a varied group for the session allowed for a holistic discussion of the issue at hand, and following 24 hours of in depth, varied discourse, the attendees agreed that this is an important and truly a multi-faceted challenge.

When looking at shifting to a preventive focus, there is a need to look at caries prevention and control for both a) excluded and vulnerable groups with limited access to dental care and b) groups who already have access to care but where treatment is still too surgically focussed. In order to do this, there are at multiple stakeholders we need to consider, all of whom have contrasting views on the legitimacy, attractiveness and economic viability of pushing for preventive caries care.

Moving forward, these groups all need to be brought to the table throughout the process, especially when we are investing in long term activity to shift public, professional and industry behaviour with regards to prevention. It was resolved by the group that useful, mid-term next steps would be to find a way to demonstrate the monetary value of a cavity- free future, and to look into ways to promote models for prevention focused payment systems for dentists, better equipping the dental and related health workforces to deliver effective caries prevention and management. 

Attendees left the Lab enthused, with a view to developing a range of ideas both individually and collectively on how best to advance progress in this field with their stakeholder organisations.