A new mobile healthcare service has been launched by EMS Healthcare, offering short or long-term hire of a state-of-the-art fleet of medical vehicles capable of hosting mobile, community-based dental services.

The new service is primarily aimed at the NHS market and could be used to help PCTs improve access to dental care by taking services on the road, which could be beneficial in rural areas and when targeting hard-to-reach groups such as the homeless.

Keith Austin, Managing Director of EMS Healthcare, said 'In the last year we have seen a marked increase in demand from PCTs for our specialised mobile health promotion campaigns. This led to requests for mobile healthcare service delivery – for example, immunisation and screening programmes – and we realised there was an opportunity to provide a dedicated service to meet this growing need.'

He added that the service, applicable to both NHS and private practices, could include fast-response temporary accommodation following fire, flood or during a refurbishment programme, a temporary location to handle registrations ahead of the opening of a new dental service in a new area, or a high-profile health promotion resource to communicate oral hygiene messages and/or to raise awareness of changes in local dental care provision.