• Provide Information

  Please support the Teeth TLC campaign by making use of our bright and informative resources. Displaying a poster or providing a leaflet or postcard to highlight the key oral health messages can go a long way in helping to improve oral health in Grampian.
  
  
  

• Create An Engaging Display

  Creating an oral health display can be a great way to engage with people and get them thinking about how they can improve their oral health. Why not use the Teeth TLC ‘Swap Your Snacks’ poster to promote healthier snacking by creating a stand which highlights the amount of sugar in some common snack items and suggests some oral health friendly alternatives?  
  
  

  Simply printing off the poster (shown to the left) and decorating it with the appropriate packaging is a good place to start, however, if possible, physically showing people the amount of sugar the items contain can serve as a real eye opener! You can do this by measuring the equivalent amounts of white table sugar into a small cup or plate as shown below in the picture below, or by using packets of sugar if creating a wall display. Remember, 1 teaspoon of sugar is equal to 5 grams in weight.
  
  
  
  NHS Grampian’s Health Information Resources Service offers a wide range of materials to help support your health promotion endeavours. Click here to view the full range of items available to borrow.  

  
  
  
  

• Expand Your Knowledge

  Have a look at the Scottish Dental website for information about the national dental programmes in Scotland. 
  
  

• Consider Smoking Cessation Training

  Scottish Dental Clinical Effectiveness Programme (SDCEP) guidelines state all dental patients should have their smoking status reviewed on a regular basis given that smoking is associated with poor periodontal status, adverse effects of medications of soft oral tissues, oral cancer and systematic disease. 
  
  Dental staff are in a unique position to address the issue of tobacco smoking as whilst other healthcare teams may only engage with people who are already suffering from a health condition, the dental team spends significant amounts of time delivering preventative and routine care to patients without such conditions. This comparatively younger, healthier patient profile gives them a unique opportunity to help patients stop smoking before significant or irreversible damage is done to their health.
  
  

  
  Brief Advice
  Brief (less than 3 minute) interventions have been shown to be highly effective for helping patients stop smoking.  Indeed, it’s estimated that between 63,000 and 190,000 people may quit smoking in the UK each year if dental practices routinely offered smoking cessation advice to patients. For these reasons, NHS Grampian is encouraging dental practices to consider arranging ‘Raising The Issue’ brief advice training for their staff. Used with success in other primary care facilities, the training provides staff with the skills and confidence to conduct a brief intervention with patients where they:
  
  1: Ask the patient if they are a smoker and, if so, if they would like to stop
  
  2: Advise the patient on the value of stopping
  
  3: Assist the patient to stop by advertising the appropriate services (for example, in Grampian, the NHSG Smoking Advice Service (SAS) and pharmacy programmes)
  
  4: Arrange a follow up, for example, through referral to one of the aforementioned support services
  
  It is worth emphasizing that the person conducting the conversation is not asked to deliver the actual smoking cessation activities themselves, they are merely asking the question (‘Are you a smoker?’), highlighting the benefits of not smoking and referring the patient onwards as appropriate. 
  
  
  

  To learn more about ‘Raising the Issue’, or to enquire about arranging brief advice training for your staff, please contact the NHS Grampian Tobacco Team.

Documents of Reference:

Alcohol and Oral Health: Understanding Risk, Raising Awareness and Giving Advice

A briefing paper developed by NHS Health Scotland for professionals working as part of a dental team. Alcohol misuse is a significant problem in Scotland. This paper highlights the link between alcohol and oral health and provides guidance as to how the issue of alcohol can be raised with patients in a dental setting, using health behaviour change approaches.