By Jaimie Kaffash
12 February 2010
A new group has been established to oversee reforms to dentistry, including giving patients greater access to NHS dentists.
The implementation board, set up by the Department of Health, will include Professor Jimmy Steele, whose recommendations from an independent review of dental services will form the bulk of the board’s work. Other members will include chief dental officer Barry Cockcroft and chair of the British Dental Association’s general dental practice committee John Milne.
Steele’s reforms were announced in June 2009 and followed on from problems with the new contract introduced in 2006. Under the contract, dentists were paid the same amount for treating fewer patients, which resulted in 2 million people without a dentist within a year.
Other recommendations that will be piloted by practitioners and primary care trusts include: the introduction of patient registration; measuring the quality of dental work, as well as the numbers of patients treated; and encouraging more preventative work.
The DoH said that access to NHS dental services had already improved and that there are almost 1,200 more NHS practitioners than two years ago. It added it had invested £2bn to ensure that, by March 2011, anyone can see an NHS dentist who wants one.
Cockcroft praised efforts to increase access. ‘Access to NHS dentistry is already improving with 840,000 more patients visiting an NHS dentist in the last year. New NHS dental surgeries are opening up all over the country. I recognise that more needs to be done to ensure that everyone who wants to can access high-quality dental services, and we are committed to delivering that vision,’ he said.
The pilots were vital in implementing the changes, according to Steele, who added: ‘I am pleased to have the opportunity to see through the recommendations of my final report as they are rolled out across the NHS. It is important that we improve preventative services to keep people healthy as well as making sure they have access to the best possible care when they need it.’
Milne said that progress on the Steele recommendations had been positive so far. But he added that there were still problems with the ‘units of dental activity’ targets, which were agreed as part of their contracts.
12 February 2010
A new group has been established to oversee reforms to dentistry, including giving patients greater access to NHS dentists.
The implementation board, set up by the Department of Health, will include Professor Jimmy Steele, whose recommendations from an independent review of dental services will form the bulk of the board’s work. Other members will include chief dental officer Barry Cockcroft and chair of the British Dental Association’s general dental practice committee John Milne.
Steele’s reforms were announced in June 2009 and followed on from problems with the new contract introduced in 2006. Under the contract, dentists were paid the same amount for treating fewer patients, which resulted in 2 million people without a dentist within a year.
Other recommendations that will be piloted by practitioners and primary care trusts include: the introduction of patient registration; measuring the quality of dental work, as well as the numbers of patients treated; and encouraging more preventative work.
The DoH said that access to NHS dental services had already improved and that there are almost 1,200 more NHS practitioners than two years ago. It added it had invested £2bn to ensure that, by March 2011, anyone can see an NHS dentist who wants one.
Cockcroft praised efforts to increase access. ‘Access to NHS dentistry is already improving with 840,000 more patients visiting an NHS dentist in the last year. New NHS dental surgeries are opening up all over the country. I recognise that more needs to be done to ensure that everyone who wants to can access high-quality dental services, and we are committed to delivering that vision,’ he said.
The pilots were vital in implementing the changes, according to Steele, who added: ‘I am pleased to have the opportunity to see through the recommendations of my final report as they are rolled out across the NHS. It is important that we improve preventative services to keep people healthy as well as making sure they have access to the best possible care when they need it.’
Milne said that progress on the Steele recommendations had been positive so far. But he added that there were still problems with the ‘units of dental activity’ targets, which were agreed as part of their contracts.
