Meeting the demand

The development of dental teams and the provision of adequate undergraduate and postgraduate training for all members of those teams are paramount for the delivery of primary dental care, especially in the less populated areas of the UK. While the Scottish university dental schools have for many years provided centres of excellence for dental education, the expansion of training programmes has meant that more facilities are necessary to meet the demand.

Rural access

Historically, students living in the remote and rural areas of Scotland wishing to continue in further education have had no alternative but to leave their local areas and apply for places in training programmes at the universities and colleges either in the Central Belt of Scotland or further afield. Graduates wishing to work in the remote and rural areas have had difficulties accessing continuing professional development (CPD) programmes because of the distance to major centres and the problems of attracting speakers to areas where only small audiences would be found.

In response to the Scottish Government's Dental Action Plan, the goal of providing undergraduate training programmes and postgraduate CPD has been addressed by the founding of two new dental centres in Inverness and Dumfries, which provide a wide range of clinical and IT facilities for delivery of primary dental care and education of the dental team.

Education in the Highlands

The University of the Highlands and Islands (UHI) School of Oral Health Science has been set up in a joint programme involving UHI Millennium Institute (UHI), NHS Education for Scotland (NES) and the NHS Boards of Highland and Dumfries and Galloway. The School will address the training needs of dental hygienists and therapists in the rural areas of Scotland and help address the need for increased primary dental care provision throughout the UK. Despite a distance of 250 miles between sites, the School uses both new centres to deliver the programme of undergraduate education. Places are provided for 12 students per year in a three year BSc in Oral Health Science. In each year, eight students are enrolled at the Inverness Dental Centre and four at the Dumfries Dental Centre. The first group will graduate in 2011, providing a substantial increase in numbers of dental care professionals in Scotland and assisting practitioners in providing a wider range of care for their patients.

State of the art facilities

The School will address the training needs of DCPs in rural Scotland and help address the need for increased primary dental care.

Teaching in the School is shared between tutors based at each of the two sites. All teaching material is provided online, using the UHI Blackboard Academic Suite virtual learning environment (VLE). Students can access the full curriculum through the internet for self-directed and reflective study, as well as attending tutorials and clinical sessions in the host centre. State of the art technology using video-conferencing and the Scotia Medical Observation Technology System (SMOTS) between sites provides real-time interactive and synchronous learning.

Clinical Skills Units have been provided within each centre with the facilities to transmit images directly to individual work stations. A fully-equipped Gaumard patient simulator unit, featuring adult and paediatric simulators, is adjacent to the Clinical Skills Unit, allowing training in emergency management.

The dental training clinic in Inverness has 14 dental chairs, including a teaching unit with overhead SMOTS camera and video-conferencing unit, while that in Dumfries has four dedicated units for therapy training and a further six units used for outreach training of dental undergraduates from Glasgow University Dental School. Outreach teaching also takes place in Inverness, providing places for students from the University of Dundee Dental School.

Teaching of decontamination procedures is part of mainstream training at all levels. As part of the development of the facilities, a training Local Decontamination Unit (LDU) has been located adjacent to the main clinic in the Inverness Dental Centre, where scenarios can be arranged to teach students all aspects of decontamination and cross infection control. UHI currently offers a Masters programme in Medical Device Decontamination which is provided as a complete online course to students throughout the UK, and it is planned that CPD courses for dental professionals will be offered within the training facility, using the training LDU for interactive sessions.

Top notch teaching

The undergraduate teaching support for the BSc Oral Health Science is provided by UHI, while dental therapy tutors manage the course, two tutors working at each site. Senior Dental Officers are also involved in the clinical teaching of the course. Guest lecturers in a range of subjects have been invited to participate, attending one or other of the Centres or video-conferencing from remote sites. For some, this method of teaching has been new and challenging, but all have indicated that they have enjoyed the experience and are eager to explore the opportunities provided for expansion of teaching styles.

The aim of the School is to provide an opportunity for integration of treatment planning for effective management of primary dental care. Patients are accepted for treatment at the centres through the Salaried Dental Service and by referral from local practitioners, ensuring increased access to care for a substantial number of people across rural Scotland.

The School provides a central hub for CPD for the whole team.

The new centres also allow dental professionals to access CPD courses using well-equipped lecture theatres and seminar rooms at both sites as well as the IT and clinical facilities. The use of multimedia encourages them to participate in courses even when time constraints mean they cannot attend in person on the day of the course. A teaching facility within the unit for dental nurse training will open shortly.

The opening of the dental centres and the School of Oral Health Science brings great potential for expansion of the workforce in healthcare in the rural areas of Scotland. The School is helping to address the problems of access to dental care in this part of the UK and provides a central hub for CPD for the whole dental team.

Isobel interviewed three students currently studying the brand new BSc in Oral Health Science at UHI. Read about their experiences throughout this article.