Improving the dental fitness of the British Army by changing the strategy for dental care provision for recruits from a vertically equitable model to a horizontally equitable model.

BACKGROUNDd: The dental health of the British Army has been reported as being in decline for the past 10 years, and this is having a significant impact on operations. One of the major factors in the decline is the increasing number of recruits who enlist with outstanding dental treatment needs. The current policy for provision of routine dental care to recruits targets resources toward those with the worst dental health and provides only emergency dental care for the remainder.AIMSs: The goal was to review recruit dental care provision, to determine whether improvements in the overall dental health of the trained Army could be made during recruit training.RESULTSs: It was found that >85% of recruit dental treatment need could be met with the routine provision of 2 hours of dental treatment during training.CONCLUSIONn: A horizontally equitable model of recruit dental care, whereby all recruits access routine dental care during training, has been recommended to and accepted by the chain of command.