Community Engagement

Students visit care homes to provide oral health guidance

Over the past two years students have provided training that empowers employees in care homes to become oral health champions in their workplace

So far 140 students have trained over 150 staff in 17 care homes across Bristol, providing them with crucial advice on areas such as better brushing techniques, cleaning dentures and how to improve oral disease prevention for around 700 residents.   

While there are national guidelines regarding the provision of oral health care for residents of care homes, reports suggest a lack of awareness of these guidelines, leading to calls for more support for residents to maintain and improve their oral health.  

This is not the case at St Monica Trust. Deirdre Brunton, Clinical Audit Lead for the Trust, said: “The training has reinforced our mouthcare policy and brought to life the importance of good oral hygiene. It’s strengthened colleagues' commitment to promoting mouthcare champions using the dental student teaching model, ensuring all staff, including new joiners, receive this crucial information."  

Photo left to right at a St Monica Trust care home: Shaenna Loughnane, CEO for Bridge2Aid; Patricia Neville, Senior Lecturer at Bristol Dental School; Professor Dave Dymock, Head of Teaching at Bristol Dental School; Dierdre Brunton, Clinical Audit Lead, St Monica Trust.

Before and during the visits the students receive guidance on how to train the carers from Bridge2Aid – a key partner of the Dental School that first developed its method of embedding oral health knowledge with community leaders through its charitable work in East Africa.  

“At Bridge2Aid, our mission focuses on training, education, community development, and prevention. We're proud to apply our expertise in training oral health champions in rural Malawi to initiatives closer to home. We aim to broaden the perspectives of students, empowering them to discover positive ways to support their local communities” says Shaenna Loughnane, CEO for Bridge2Aid.  

For their part, students participate in the scheme as part of the social accountability theme in their curriculum, helping them to gain valuable experience that they can apply later in the careers.   

“We want to enable our students to be socially accountable and future leaders in their community” explains Professor Dave Dymock, Head of Teaching at Bristol Dental School and the driving force behind this initiative. “This scheme is helping them to get their first valuable taste of that – and, I’m pleased to say, has been a great benefit for the care homes they visit.”