Leading article: Open wide
Wednesday, 2 July 2008
For a government to botch one set of contract negotiations with National Health Service workers, as this government did with general practitioners, might be seen as unfortunate. To do it a second time, this time with dentists, begins to look like incompetence.
Yet that is the scathing verdict delivered today by the Commons Health Select Committee. The committee argues that the new NHS contract for dentists, implemented two years ago, has failed to improve services for patients because, under the new treatment pricing system, dentists have no financial incentive to treat complex cases.
The reform has also failed to increase the number of people getting NHS dental treatment. Figures released last month showed that a million fewer people are now seeing an NHS dentist than before the contract was negotiated.
We should, of course, recognise that sorting out dentistry in this country was always going to be the political equivalent of root-canal surgery, rather than a simple filling. The British, for some inexplicable reason, have always tended to place a lower priority on looking after their teeth than their general health. The infrastructure and culture of regular check-up visits to the dentist simply does not exist. But the Government certainly did not do itself any favours by failing to put the new system out to trial before implementing it.
It is hardly an attractive proposition, but if we are to see more people getting better treatment for their teeth, health ministers are going to have to persuade the patient to open wide and say "ahhh" once again.
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The Department of Health has failed to provide an adequate NHS dentistry services. I am a GP and routinely have patients book in to see me with what is obviously a dental complaint. When I suggest they make an appointment with the appropriate professional, I normally get a frustrating story of the difficulty of seeing a dentist on the NHS. I, on the other hand, am more accessible and considerably cheaper than a private dentist. My colleagues in A&E describe similar problems. Why does this government complain about GP access, while our appointments go to seeing dental cases, which we are neither trained nor remunerated to see?
Posted by Rashed Akhtar | 02.07.08, 08:00 GMT
I worked in the NHS dentistry for 7 years ans now work in Australia where I now live. I worked under the new contract for a short period of time and it is farcical and it is very much to the patients' detriment. The government should provide a basic core of services on the NHS and the rest should be privatised and perhaps similar to Australia, more private dental insurance should be brought in.
Patients are suffering and there is no doubt supervised neglect as it is absurd to expect a dentist to carry out 10 fillings for the same price as he would get paid to do 1, where is the logic in that? Hardly surprising dentists do not want to treat patients and are being slective!
The only way this will ever work is to bring back individual fees for items of service, as before, and increase the fees so that NHS dentistry is remunerated appropriately.
Posted by A | 02.07.08, 01:44 GMT