New NHS contracts could trigger exodus of dentists, warns BDA |
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Tue, 29 Nov 2005 07:05
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LONDON - The British Dental Association has issued a dire warning that many dentists on the NHS are all set to go private or take an early retirement as they are not satisfied with the provisions in the new NHS contracts that is set to come into effect from April next year.
The BDA said that many dentists had already quit form the NHS saying that the "drill and fill" culture would not be abolished with these new contracts. It is estimated that in some areas, over three quarters of the dentists have already warned that they would be forced to quit the NHS.
Lester Ellman of the BDA criticized the provisions in the contract which state that dentists would receive a fixed budget instead of receiving payment for each treatment carried out. "Dentists feel very disappointed about the contract. It really is not going to make any difference to what we are doing now. I expect significant numbers will consider their positions in the next few months," he said.
Consumer watchdog Which? says that one in four adults in the UK currently pays for private dental work and this number would increase if the dental community were to totally reject the new contracts. In England only about 300 dentists do total private work, while a significant number of England's 20,000 strong workforce does a mixture of NHS and private work.
The secretary of Manchester's dentist's committee feels that the contracts might push many dentists into taking up private practices, "Patients will find that NHS dentists will not be available. The problem is that it is not easy to measure preventative work, it is only in a generation or two that we will see the benefits," he commented.
However, Chief Dental Officer Barry Cockcroft felt that these 'reforms' were needed to improve the quality of dental service in the country, “These reforms will improve dental services for NHS patients, make NHS dentistry more attractive to dentists and promote a more preventive approach to improve oral health."
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