Chief Dental Officer "In Denial" Says Dental Practitioners Association, UK

The Dental Practitioners Association chose the release of a survey by the Citizens Advice Bureaux showing 7.4m people have been unable to access NHS dentistry to make a series of media appearances to highlight the shortcomings of the NHS contract introduced in April 2006.


In an appearance on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme at 7:50am on 16th January, Derek Watson, the Chief Executive Officer of the DPA said


"The CAB figures reflect the feedback we are getting back from our members and mirrors a larger survey by the Patient and Public Information Forums. I believe you are going to have the Chief Dental Officer on after me and I am sure he will tell you everything is fine but the Association and I think (and most dentists tend to think) he is in denial a bit. There is a massive gap in the terms and conditions between working on the NHS and privately and most dentists are choosing not to work on the NHS because it represents a significant business risk. Dentists are not like doctors, they have to buy their own premises and materials. If you are going to work on the NHS and borrow money over five or ten years for a practice and you have a one-year contract on the NHS which may or may not be renewed and the prospect in April 2009 of a further deterioration ... you are going to avoid that sort of work.


"The new contract is much less flexible, much less efficient and dentists have been told to take the business risk of paying for everything while the DoH has nationalised them and can tell dentists where they can work and which patients they must see and for most dentists that is a very unattractive proposition. After April 2009 the dental budget may well go on heart machines, so for a dentist, working on the NHS is a whole new order of risk.


"What the DoH is doing is buying courses of treatment and not treatment. Each course of treatment can contain anything and prior to April 2006 each course probably contained more than it does now."


Derek Watson was also a guest on Radio Five Live???s ???phone in from 9am to 10am entitled "Are Dentists Just Greedy?" where he defended the level of dentists??? income and their right to work privately and cast doubt on the wisdom of travelling abroad for dentistry in view of the difficulties with aftercare. He said:


"I love the title ???Are dentists simply greedy???? I look forward to your next ???phone-in ???Are politicians simply incompetent???? - I would love to participate in that."


He concluded by warning against the idea that dentists could be forced to work in the NHS. His final appearance was on BBC TV News 24 at 4:10pm.


Notes


A new NHS dental contract introduced in April 2006 gave greater powers to Primary Care Trusts to direct NHS dentists while capping the NHS dental budget. Dentists are reducing their dependence on the NHS due to the increased business risk of working under the new contract, and the disparity in terms and conditions.


The Dental Practitioners Association was established in 1954 and supports and represents dentists in general practice on terms and conditions in the UK.

Dental Practitioners Association