Background: The National Health Service (NHS) aims to achieve maximum health gains with its limited resources, while also ensuring that it provides services according to need, irrespective of factors such as socioeconomic position (SEP). Aim: The aim of this thesis is to explore the relationships between SEP and various aspects of the NHS orthodontic service, including need, demand, supply, and outcomes. Methods: Three main data sources were used: two population-based surveys (the 2003 United Kingdom (UK) Children’s Dental Health Survey (CDHS) and the 2008-2009 NHS Dental Epidemiology Programme for England Oral Health Survey (OHS) in the North West) and an administrative data set (containing 2008-2012 North West NHS orthodontic activity data). The data were used to investigate levels of need and willingness to have orthodontic treatment, treatment utilisation, assessment procedures, and treatment outcomes, and the costs associated with the service. Subsequently, regression analyses were carried out to explore the associations between SEP and the various orthodontic variables. Results: Over a third of 12-year-olds had normative need for orthodontic treatment and over half had patient-defined need. Those in the most deprived groups in the North West tended to have lower levels of treatment compared to those in the least deprived group (despite the fact that normative need was not shown to vary by SEP), and they were more likely to discontinue treatment and have residual post-treatment need (RPTN). There was a great deal of variation among practices/orthodontic clinicians in terms of the percentages of patients with repeated assessments, treatment discontinuations, and RPTN. The major sources of potential inefficiency costs in the NHS orthodontic service in the North West are treatments that result in discontinuations (which cost £2.4 million per year), RPTN (which cost £1.8 million per year), and unreported treatment outcomes (which cost £13.0 million per year). Discussion: The NHS is not delivering orthodontic care equitably between SEP groups in the North West, as those from more deprived groups are more likely to fail to receive treatment, and to have poor outcomes if they do receive treatment. In addition, the wide range of process and outcome indicators between practices/orthodontic clinicians raises issues about quality of the overall service. In particular, treatment outcomes are frequently unreported, which highlights the need to improve the outcome monitoring systems in the NHS orthodontic service.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:684785 |
| Date | January 2016 |
| Creators | Price, Juliet |
| Publisher | University of Manchester |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/en/theses/socioeconomic-position-and-the-national-health-service-orthodontic-service(b4b4d25b-826a-4efe-83ae-50c18fafcf6a).html |
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