Building resilient regional and remote Queensland communities.
Our Stories
Celebrating World Class Dental Care for Regional and Remote Queensland Communities
In 2013 the QCoal Community Dental Service started providing world-class oral healthcare to regional and remote Queensland.
This mobile service was the first of its kind in Australia, and the result of a partnership between the Royal Flying Doctor Service (Queensland Section) and QCoal Foundation.
In 2017 the service transitioned to the RFDS Dental Service and is now fully funded by the Commonwealth Government. In 2023 we celebrated 10 years of operations, with the service continuing to deliver for regional and remote communities.
Fundamental to QCoal Foundation’s social venture approach to philanthropy is the monitoring and evaluation of our programs. To measure the impact of the RFDS Dental Service, QCoal Foundation and the RFDS commissioned leading advisory firm BDO Services to analyse the economic and social benefits of the service using patient data from 2013 to 2019.
The findings of this review are powerful. The RFDS Dental Service produced more than $15 million of economic and social benefits for Queensland patients during this time and provided over 76,600 treatments to patients living in 24 rural and remote communities across the State.
For every $1 invested in the RFDS Dental Service $1.80 of economic and social benefit was generated.
QCoal Foundation CEO, Sylvia Bhatia commented.
“Through our long-standing partnership with the RFDS and the operation of the Dental Service, we have worked hard to understand gaps in oral health service delivery as well as the value of mobile service delivery model.
“This report was developed to look beyond the high-level statistics around patient numbers, treatments and procedures to the very real economic and social community benefits that stem from oral health care delivered by the Dental Service
“One of the most significant findings of the study is that for every $1 in funding, $1.80 of benefits returned to communities through our model of partnership – this opportunity to amplify our impact epitomises QCoal Foundation’s approach.
“For the Foundation, it also supports our social venture approach and the value that can be delivered by effective and long-term government, not-for-profit and philanthropic partnerships.
“We remain proud of the outcomes of the RFDS Dental Service and we hope this report will become a benchmark for our future collaborations and for others in the philanthropic sector,” Ms Bhatia said.
Recently the RFDS Dental Service debuted a new look signifying a continued commitment to Closing the Gap in oral health care. We look forward to the RFDS Dental Service continuing to grow and deliver for regional and remote Queensland communities.
You can learn more about our social venture partnership with the RFDS Queensland Section here and the outcomes of the study in the video below.
