Teledentistry-Health Advocates for our war and sugar
YOUR DENTIST IN YOUR POCKET
After Covid, more and more healthcare is delivered remotely — through phone calls with your GP, practice nurse, or other members of the team. Most of us now carry a powerful health tool in our pocket: a smartphone that can take photos, record videos, and join video calls, both live (synchronously) and later (asynchronously).
The government has recently announced an expansion of NHS online services to support medical conditions. However, there is still far less focus on prevention — particularly the practical steps that help people reduce sugar intake and protect their teeth.
So we may have to take the lead ourselves. Oral health prevention is one of the easiest and most suitable areas to deliver online in any bathroom. With the right guidance, we can learn quickly, make better daily choices, and improve long-term health.
We just need to start — and keep it simple and teach ourselves.
Learn from Experience
In many parts of the USA, mobile dentistry and teledentistry are already well established, with experienced clinicians and proven workflows.
After I retired, I learnt much more about Silver Diamine Fluoride (SDF) — including practical demonstrations and guidance shared openly online, especially around paediatric use. In 2024, I also heard a webinar discussion about SDF’s potential role in improving oral health in care homes, which may help reduce aspiration-related complications such as pneumonia.
With permission from early pioneers in this field, I created an introductory video on SDF using their materials and acknowledging their work. In 2025, I travelled to Portland to learn directly from colleagues with long-standing experience in mobile care and SDF.
This is the presentation on prevention I gave to this group from my experience as a GDP in the uk.
Click the image to follow the AMTA — membership is free for anyone outside the USA.
This video is an introduction to teledentistry — not a polished “perfect course”, but a practical starting point for building one ✅
Teledentistry grew during COVID… and then went strangely quiet 🤔
Meanwhile the problems haven’t gone away: access is worse, services are under pressure, and healthcare sustainability is becoming impossible to ignore 🌍
In this talk I share why teledentistry fits the future of dentistry, and how the wider dental team can be empowered to deliver prevention-led support safely and ethically 🦷✨
✅ What’s covered in this video What teledentistry is (and why it matters again) Why sustainability matters: the biggest emissions issue is transport 🚗💨
Why dentistry is being pushed outside integrated healthcare — and why that’s a mistake How dentists, nurses, therapists and hygienists can all be involved 👥
The reality of GDC boundaries, indemnity uncertainty, and doing it safely 🛡️
How a simple platform could help patients find the right professional locally 📍
Why prevention is ideal for remote advice (and how it reduces risk and litigation) ✅
How we can buddy up and practise video consultations before seeing patients 🤝
What equipment you actually need (spoiler: not much) 📱🎤
The long-term aim: a Dental Health Service platform that is free at the point of contact and financially viable for professionals 💡
This is a bottom-up project. If you’re interested in teledentistry, prevention, care homes, community dentistry, or building something better than what we currently have — I’d love your input 🙏
⏱️ Chapters / Timestamps 00:00 Introduction
01:40 Definition and benefits
02:20 Sustainability in dentistry
03:30 Registration on the website 05:21 Uploading registration evidence 06:39 Registration help
07:56 Contact & contact with the public
08:44 Setting up fees
11:53 Outlines for running video consultations
14:55 Compliance and quality control
15:46 Your App and a website?
16:53 Search FAQ
17:30 Set up required visual aids
18:46 Teach yourself, buddy up
22:06 How to teach each other
25:00 Video links to experts
🔍 Extra research / people to look up: Search for Paul Glasson (Public Health, California) and Richard Neiderman (Public Dental Health)Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut elit tellus, luctus nec ullamcorper mattis, pulvinar dapibus leo.
There are lots of videos on DenFlix.co.uk showing simple ways to create and customise your own patient-friendly content.
You’ll find step-by-step instructions on how to:
make videos from scratch
add your own voice using the scripts provided
shorten or lengthen videos to suit your audience
add yourself (or an avatar) speaking in the corner of the screen
Patients are far more likely to engage with a familiar voice and face they trust.
Most of these videos can be made using the free version of CapCut, which is what I’ve been using for my recent content.
Just by using your phone as I did for Christmas.
