Access to dental care for the frail elderly is no better than it was twenty years ago, according to the conclusion of the first evidence review carried out by the Shirley Glasstone Hughes Trust Fund for dental research (SGH) and published for the first time in the BDJ in this issue (see page
The Shirley Glasstone Hughes Trust Fund has commissioned critical appraisals to review the evidence for the top voted for questions submitted by dentists and DCPs on the Primary Care Dentistry Research Forum (
The critical appraisals are published in the form of accessible evidence summaries that are written in an easily digestible format for non-academics who wish to make use of the evidence base.
These new reviews of the research evidence will be published in the BDJ and on the Primary Care Dentistry Research Forum on a regular basis. The first evidence summary published in this edition of the BDJ is on the topic of access to dental care for the frail and elderly.
Practitioners and DCPs are encouraged to log on to the website and submit their individual questions to which they would like to have a conclusive answer. Members of the website then vote on the questions and each month the question with the most votes goes forward to be reviewed.
By July this year a total of nine questions identified by the members of the website will have been reviewed. As a result of carrying out the critical appraisals, it will be possible to identify those topics/questions that have very little or poor evidence currently available. These topics will then form the priority areas for SGH research commissioning.
In the coming months it is anticipated that several priority areas for new research will be identified, and the Trust will commission research on this basis. This ensures that all SGH funded research has been directly identified by those working in practice and that the research commissioned will be of real relevance to primary dental care practice.
Contributions to the website are still needed and clinicians can log on and help decide what further topics are reviewed in order to ensure a practitioner-led research agenda.
For further information or to vote visit the website at
