Hot on the heels of winning an award for ‘Best Outreach or Charity Initiative’, this year’s #SmilesAtSea tour of Cornwall and Devon was once again a resounding success.

In total, 173 members of the fishing community received free dental checks and emergency treatment from Smile Together, making this the most successful tour yet.

#SmilesatSea visited nine fishing ports in three weeks – from Newlyn and Hayle in the far West to Brixham in the South and Ilfracombe in the North. And it wasn’t only free dental treatment on offer – the dental team were joined by a number of other local health care providers from physiotherapists to healthy lifestyle advisors, from cancer specialists to podiatrists, all absolutely free.

Smile Together were delighted with the results. Joy Callender, who has led on #SmilesatSea for the last three years, said: 'The response this year has been amazing. We saw 134 fishermen, 30 family members and 9 children – that’s an average of 13 patients each day. Everyone had a dental check-up and 81 fishermen – almost twice as many as last year – were referred on for further treatment locally with our Brighter Dental team. Around a quarter needed immediate treatment and we ended up doing 40 fillings and nine extractions at the harbourside. Our dental team hardly stopped!

'We know how hard it is to fit in a visit to the dentist if you’re out at sea, so we’ve made it easier by bringing free dental check-ups, immediate dental treatment and oral cancer screening to the harbourside. Many of the fishermen we saw hadn’t seen a dentist for years and were full of praise for the treatment they received.'

This is the third year that fishermen and their families in the South West have been offered free dental checks and treatment. Speaking about the success of this year’s tour, SeaFit Project Delivery Manager Carol

Elliott explained: 'For the first two years #SmilesAtSea ran over two weeks and was delivered by Smile Together in partnership with the Fishermen’s Mission and funded by the Seafarers Hospital Society. Now it’s part of the national SeaFit Programme and as a result we’ve been able to really expand it. Not only have we run over three weeks and visited more fishing ports, but we’ve partnered with a wider range of local health care providers who want to make an even greater impact on the health and wellbeing of our fishing communities. And the response has been fantastic, far exceeding our expectations. So we know the demand is out there and we’re already looking at what we can do to reach even more fishing families with these much-needed services.'

Smile Together were joined on the tour by a wide range local health care providers including Healthy Cornwall, Macmillan Cancer Support, Prostate Cancer UK, members of Harbourside Physiotherapy Network, Fairwinds, OneYou Plymouth, Healthy Lifestyle Torbay, SAIL, Compass House GP Surgery, Alcoholics Anonymous, the Environment Agency, Seafood Cornwall Training and the local Fishermen’s Mission.

The health checks were a particular success with almost half of the dental patients taking the opportunity to have their personal MOT, including blood pressure, weight, cholesterol and blood sugar checks. Hazel Smith, a SeaFit Healthy Lifestyle Advisor working out of Newlyn, was a key partner in Cornwall, where a total of 30 health checks were carried out.


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