Tooth Fairies Raise £400+ for Dementia Care
February 23rd 2010
Patients may have been surprised to find the Tooth Fairy and other colourful characters waiting to treat them at the Trafalgar dental clinics in Hampshire this month.
But it was all in a good cause. Dental nurses, receptionists and dentists at Trafalgar's not-for-profit clinics in the New Forest, Southampton, Gosport and Portsmouth dressed up for a day to raise money for new equipment for people with dementia.
All five Trafalgar clinics in Hampshire, which offer NHS dental care on behalf of local PCTs, held a ‘name the teddy bear' competition and together raised £431.
The money will go towards activity and sports equipment for dementia patients visiting the Fenwick2 Health and Well-being Centre in Lyndhurst.
Fenwick2 runs a pioneering early dementia assessment service, where patients and their carers can attend for 12 weeks to obtain support from care services, community nurses, voluntary groups and mental health services for their condition.
"We got some funny looks from patients, but it was good fun and well worth it for the amount of money we raised," said Samantha Smith, Head of Trafalgar Dentistry.
Trafalgar provides NHS dentistry for 47,000 patients in Hampshire. It set a national trend by offering much-needed NHS dentistry in areas where no NHS dentists were available or where there were long waiting lists. 
It is contracted by NHS Hampshire and Portsmouth and Southampton PCTs to provide NHS dental services and supplements its income by offering dentistry to private patients as well. 
Both Trafalgar and Fenwick2 are run by social enterprise health and social care provider SCA Group, based in Southampton, which reinvests any surpluses it makes into improving services for the community.