Change Please Homeless Dental Bus

Background

The Change Please Foundation had previously repurposed and fitted out buses to provide essential services and facilities to the homeless such as doctors, vets, banking, showers, hair dressing, financial literacy training and therapy assessments. They had a vision to add dental services, housed inside a bus, that could be driven to homeless people as part of their Driving for Change initiative.

Change Please approached Eclipse Dental with this brief and asked for our assistance to make this happen in a very short timescale, so that the bus could be launched ahead of World Homeless Day with London Mayor Sadiq Khan.

Driving for Change and TP Bennett (interior designers) won the Community Prize and the People’s Choice Award at the New London Awards 2022.

Solution

After our meetings with Change Please and their specialist bus convertors, we put forward a suggestion for a dental surgery and decontamination room that would be workable in the bus, considering the small amount of space available. This included finding the best choices for equipment such as the air compressor, suction pump and autoclave that had the lowest possible electrical supply requirement.

We are very pleased with the result and delighted to have been able to assist this charity in their great work for the homeless.

Sadiq Khan said that "As a son of a bus driver I'm so proud to see our buses used in this way".

For more information see the Change Please website, this article in the Big Issue and this interview by Dentistry.co.uk with our project manager, Chester Boyt.

“We really enjoyed working with Eclipse Dental. They were key in helping us find and develop the best solution for Driving for Change. They really embraced all of the challenges that come with setting up a full dental practice on a bus. Their technical advice, efficiency and experience were key to make the project a success. We will definitely work together again.”

Emmanuelle Davidson-Merritt
Global Head of Brand
Change Please