WHAT WORKED FOR ME (Article from The Times, 4 December 2007)
December 19th 2007
BRIAN STREVENS Group Chief Executive at SCA Group, a social enterprise, on an initiative that helps residents in deprived areas to gain access to NHS dental treatment
SCA Group started because there was a lack of community social services in the independent sector. It was very successful and we decided to expand into community healthcare. We saw an opportunity with dental services. Hampshire had a real shortage of NHS dentists - whole areas didn't have any because local dentists would work only privately.
With the help of the local primary care trust (PCT) we brought a number of Central and Eastern European dentists. We had a cultural support team to make sure that we retained people - it's all very well going and recruiting them, but if they don't have practical support they will go home.
We recruited about 20 dentists altogether, mainly from the Czech Republic, Latvia, Poland, Slovenia and Hungary and moved into one of the most deprived areas of Hampshire. We now have five practices. They treat about 35,000 patients. There are problems, though. We are dealing with people with a history of no dental treatment - they need massive attention. We do three times the amount of treatment over the national average and it's expensive. If you don't have a private practice going alongside your NHS practice it is a bit of a struggle. We are asking PCTs to take note of this and they have been supportive.
We're an NHS Pathfinder and they have helped us with project development. Financial institutions aren't very good at dealing with social enterprises, but Big Issue Invest has also been very helpful. It understands the sorts of problems we have and works alongside us - it can give us holidays on repayments. [In] the past three years there has been a great change in attitudes to community enterprise. SCA group now has a turnover about £8.5 million.
I think there's scope for greater community healthcare. We'd like to share our ideas - there's a lot of imagination in the provinces. We haven't come across people taking to their teeth with pliers, but we have seen people turn from just coming to the dentist when they are in pain to coming regularly as a preventive measure and bringing their children. It is an expensive business and there is quite a lot of financial risk. But we are happy to have been able to fill a gap in this way.