Celebrating a New Partnership with Lincoln Medical and Dental School
Working together to create meaningful community outreach, inform education, and promote access to care.
We are delighted to be working in partnership with University of Lincoln Medical and Dental Schools at an exciting time for health education, community collaboration and oral health improvement. This new work brings together shared ambitions; to listen to communities, build trusted relationships, support students and staff, and help create learning experiences that are grounded in the realities, strengths and priorities of local people.
The partnership aligns closely with Lincoln’s wider commitment to tackling rural and coastal health inequalities, strengthening the dental workforce and improving access to NHS dental care across Lincolnshire, including through the Lincolnshire Institute of Dental and Oral Health.
Our role
Our role is to develop creative and practical opportunities for community engagement and outreach, helping to ensure that local voices shape the development of the new dental school from the outset. We will advise and guide community collaboration, support inclusive approaches to engagement, and help connect the School with people and organisations who understand local needs, assets and lived experience.
We will also work alongside students and staff to develop community engagement themes within the curriculum, creating opportunities for future dental professionals to learn with and from communities. This approach will help students build confidence, empathy and practical insight while supporting a culture of partnership, listening and shared learning.
Supporting patient recruitment and inclusive engagement
A key part of our work will be supporting patient recruitment for the new dental school, with a particular focus on engagement with underserved communities. By building relationships with community groups, local partners and people who may face barriers to accessing dental care, we will help create routes into participation that are welcoming, accessible and respectful.
This means working thoughtfully with communities to understand what matters to them, identifying practical barriers to involvement, and helping design engagement activities that support trust, confidence and participation. It also means recognising the valuable contribution that patients and communities can make to the education of future dental professionals.
Building engagement into learning
Community engagement is not an add-on to health education; it is central to preparing students for compassionate, effective and socially responsive practice. Through this partnership, we will support the development of curriculum themes that encourage students to explore oral health inequalities, community priorities, communication, co-production and the importance of working across sectors.
By embedding these themes into teaching and learning, the partnership will help students see the person and community behind the patient and understand how dental care connects with wider determinants of health, wellbeing and access.
A positive step forward
We are proud to be part of this important new chapter. Together, we have the opportunity to develop a model of engagement that is positive, inclusive and rooted in partnership, one that supports students, staff, patients and communities, while contributing to better oral health and more equitable access to care.
This work celebrates the power of collaboration; bringing people together, valuing community expertise, and helping shape a dental school that is connected to the communities it serves.