The All-Party Parliamentary Group’s ‘Accelerating NHS Reform‘ report highlights the important role social enterprises can play in transforming NHS services.
Social enterprises can bring together high-quality NHS care, prevention, workforce development, research and community engagement in ways that traditional provider models often struggle to achieve.
At Peninsula Dental Social Enterprise, this is a model we have been delivering for years. By combining NHS dental care with education, prevention, research and community engagement, we’re tackling oral health inequalities across the South West while developing the dental workforce.
In 2024/25 alone, PDSE helped train 437 dental and dental therapy undergraduate students, delivered more than 40,000 patient appointments, and treated over 8,400 patients across four Dental Education Facilities, with almost all of the treatment we provide being free for those who benefit from it.
At a time when NHS dental care is increasingly hard to access, this represents a significant contribution to improving oral health across the region, while supporting an under-pressure NHS system.
The APPG report recognises that social enterprises combine public service values with innovation, community focus and long-term investment. Our integrated model demonstrates that this approach can also strengthen the dental workforce, reduce health inequalities and create lasting benefits for patients, communities, and the wider health system.
As the NHS looks to shift towards prevention, community-based care and reducing health inequalities, we hope this report helps create more opportunities for proven social enterprise models like PDSE to work alongside the NHS to improve access to dental care and support the future sustainability of NHS dentistry.
Read more about our impact in our 2024/25 Social Audit Report here.
