2020 - Dentistry

DENTISTRY

Commenting on the BBC’s findings, Dave Cottam, the chair of the General Dental Practice Committee, described a “perfect storm” of underfunding and recruitment issues. He said: “These access problems are no longer affecting a few ‘hotspots’, but are now the reality for millions across every English region. “The public are entitled to access care, but the system is stacked against them. “Those losing out are the patients who need us most. The next government owes it to them to ensure this service has a future.” Alongside being put off by cost, another reason for this low level of engagement was patients being turned away and the belief, among

Theresa may, the prime minister, provided a budget settlement of £20.5 billion to be divided over the following five-year period, 3.4 per cent of which has been set aside to ensure the plan can be sustained. On January 7, 2019, the nHS long Term Plan was published by the prime minister and the chief executive of nHS England, Simon Stevens. The plan marks a distinct move away from the Health and Social Care Act 2012, which worked towards a policy of competition across the nHS in England, first seen in the early 1990s. The current plan has been referred to as indicative of a “fundamental shift” in the way the public and the nHS interact. In order to create partnerships between the two groups, staff are being trained to take on a more supportive role, ensuring that patients are able to make the best decisions for themselves, while also being appropriately informed of treatment options. patients, that appointments were not available. In order to explain this, the BDA put forward two key reasons: practices struggling to fill vacant posts and a 29 per cent fall in funding per head, over seven years, accounting for inflation. The union also criticised the way dental contracts functioned, specifically the fact that when dentists have met their quota, they do not get paid extra for taking on other patients. In order to lower these figures, nHS England said it was “actively working” to better understand and address these issues. In order to tackle the problem of patients not knowing about services in their area, an nHS spokesperson said patients should consult the nHS website.

The nHS long Term Plan

Theresa may and Simon Stevens, the

chief executive of nHS England, published the nHS long Term Plan in January 2019

In the summer of 2018, the government asked the nHS to create a ten-year plan in order to establish how funding should be used in the coming decade.

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