The proportion of care home providers saying that people who use their services could 'never' access NHS dental care has increased fourfold, according to the health and social care regulator finds.

A new report into oral health in care homes by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) has found a number of significant improvements since a similar study in 2019.

Based on inspections of 50 care homes, the new report found that Care homes are much more aware of the NICE oral health guidelines. In 2019, only 61% were aware of the guidance. This has increased to 91%.

The 2022 study also found that more than double the proportion of care plans fully covered oral health needs (60%), compared to 2019 (27%).

The percentage of care home providers saying that staff always – or mostly always – receive specific training in oral health has doubled from 30% in 2019 to 60% in 2022.

However, the CQC’s study also found that the proportion of care home providers saying that people who use their services could 'never' access NHS dental care rose from 6% in 2019 to 25% in 2022.

Commenting on the report, Mary Cridge Director of Adult Social Care at CQC said: ‘Our review for our first Smiling matters report in 2019 set out to discover how well care home and dental providers were implementing the NICE guideline on oral health. We found that staff awareness of the guideline recommendations was low, and not everyone was supported to keep their teeth or dentures clean.

‘Whilst I am pleased to see that many of our recommendations from 2019 have been taken on board, and providers are more aware of how important oral health is to keeping people healthy, we recognise that there is still room for improvement. In particular, it is imperative that more is done to ensure people have access to vital care from dentists and that oral and dental health is included in all care plans.’