ICB seeks first GP and dentist integration

An integrated care board in the East of England is working to integrate general practice and dental care records, and exploring shared sites for the two primary care services.

Suffolk and North East Essex ICB is exploring how to “bring primary care services together”, according to recent board papers.

Ed Garratt, its chief executive, said dental practices first began to collaborate through the ICB’s dental priority access and stabilisation scheme, which saw them offer 15,000 urgent appointments.

“We’re now thinking about how to create networks of dental practices that could work together with our general practice networks,” he told HSJ. He added that the ICB was also pursuing integrating the summary care record – a patient record held by GPs – so it could be shared with dentists.

Mr Garratt said having GPs and dentists working at the same hub sites was likely to be “the ultimate end stage” for this work.

He said the moves were designed to improve communication and holistic care across dental and other health. “Often, dentists and GPs might share the same patient, but they would never communicate about that patient. So you can have more holistic care potentially if people were working closer together,” he said.

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Source: HSJ, 10 April 2025

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