Delivering Better Oral Health (Fourth Edition)

Public Health England are delighted to announce that the fourth edition of Delivering Better Oral Health: an evidence based toolkit for prevention has been published this afternoon and can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/delivering-better-oral-health-an-evidence-based-toolkit-for-prevention.

As you are already aware, this updated toolkit will help both dental teams and wider health and social care professionals alike to provide high quality preventative care and advice to their patients and people in their care.  It can also be used as an evidence-based teaching resource.  We would therefore be grateful if you could place a link to this revised edition on your website and/or circulate it within your networks, highlighting the key new elements:

• Delivering Better Oral: an evidence based toolkit for prevention (fourth edition) has been developed through a wider UK collaboration of experts, frontline practitioners and for the first time patient representatives
• The toolkit has been published on gov.uk in a new digital format making it easily accessible on mobile devices
• Although the summary tables (chapter 2) have not changed significantly, there is new content on:
• infant feeding
• early detection of oral cancer and more detail on tobacco cessation and alcohol reduction
• a new table on tooth wear focusing on accelerated tooth wear

In addition, the importance of effectively supporting behaviour change is acknowledged with this chapter, coming immediately after the summary guidance tables, with practical examples as case studies.  Throughout the new version of DBOH there has been a greater consideration of the oral health of older people and other vulnerable groups.