People in need of urgent dental treatment and patients requiring complex care will be prioritized as part of Government plans to improve access to NHS dentists in England. The proposals could mean a saving of \u00a3225 for patients who require numerous appointments for complicated treatments. For years, it has become increasingly difficult for many patients to find a dentist, with some towns in England described as \u201cdental deserts\u201d and having no access to NHS dentists at all.<\/p>\n
The British Dental Association (BDA) said the plans would not solve current problems without more funding and real reform. Health Minister stated that the plans aimed to "prioritize" urgent care, adding that there was currently \u201ca lot of unnecessary routine care going on\u201d in NHS dental services. If a patient has \u201cgood oral health,\u201d they do not need to visit the dentist \u201cmore than about every two years.\u201d The current practice of offering most patients NHS check-ups every six months was deemed "not the right use" of dentists’ time, consuming a lot of money in NHS dentistry.<\/p>\n
Under the current system, which dates back to 2006, dentists are paid based on units of dental activity, known as UDAs. Different procedures \u2013 fillings, extractions, and more complicated work \u2013 are assigned a different number of UDAs. Dentists providing NHS services have a contract that sets out how many UDAs they will carry out each year and are paid accordingly. However, this has resulted in dentists having more money to carry out simple check-ups instead of spending longer dealing with patients who required more complex and time-consuming care.<\/p>\n
For years, dentists have complained that the contract for NHS work does not cover the cost of the services they are given. As a result, many dentists have withdrawn from NHS work, meaning it is becoming increasingly difficult for people to access healthcare. There are parts of the country where there is simply no access to NHS dentistry.<\/p>\n
Under the government plans, there would be new incentives for dentists to offer longer-term treatments for serious problems such as gum disease and tooth decay on the NHS. Currently, a patient with multiple tooth decay or severe gum disease – both of which require complex treatment – would need to be treated in multiple appointments, which is costly and time-consuming. But under proposed changes to the dental contract for NHS work, dental practices would be able to offer patients a single comprehensive treatment package tailored to their needs over a longer period of time. And ministers argue it could save a patient up to \u00a3225 in fees.<\/p>\n
The chairman of the BDA’s General Dental Practice Committee said "a dental crisis" had arisen as a direct result of the 2006 contract. \u201cThe reforms announced today seek to improve a broken system.\u201d He added that NHS dentistry would continue to fail for \u201cdentists and patients\u201d until \u201cchronic underfunding\u201d and wider systemic problems were addressed. \u201cIt will be a tremendous challenge to provide comprehensive care with the same budget we currently have.\u201d The Government has a \u201cmassive problem to solve\u201d in dental care and is negotiating a \u201cradical overhaul\u201d of the NHS dental contract with the BDA.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Introduction to NHS Dental Care Plans People in need of urgent dental treatment and patients requiring complex care will be prioritized as part of Government plans to improve access to NHS dentists in England. The proposals could mean a saving of \u00a3225 for patients who require numerous appointments for complicated treatments. For years, it has<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28443,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[20653,12376,19591,2272,1418,4927,20654,2647,2956,20655,1919],"class_list":{"0":"post-28442","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-british-dental-association","9":"tag-dentist","10":"tag-dentistry","11":"tag-emergency-medicine","12":"tag-health-care","13":"tag-patient","14":"tag-periodontal-disease","15":"tag-pollution","16":"tag-service-economics","17":"tag-tooth-decay","18":"tag-work-human-activity"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28442"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28442\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28444,"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28442\/revisions\/28444"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}