COVID-19: Update: End of week round-up, BDA, BBC and GDC
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- Published: Friday, 10 April 2020 07:34
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The BDA has again spoken (in a virtual meeting) with health minister, Jo Churchill, to discuss a number of urgent issues, including lack of progress in setting up the Urgent Dental Care system in England. Earlier in the week this was the subject of a major BBC news report. The GDC has sent an update, including its refusal to reduce the Annual Retention Fee.
To keep up to date with developments from the BDA, dentists should visit their Coronavirus update page[i], which is available to all whether or not they are members and is continuously revised.
Meeting the Health Minister: Trying to solve the lack of urgent care in England
BDA Chair, Mick Armstrong and CEO Martin Woodrow have met the Health Minister, Jo Churchill again today to discuss a number of urgent issues, including the troubling lack of progress in setting up the Urgent Dental Care system in England. The Minister has asked to meet again to discuss this on Tuesday, immediately after the Bank Holiday weekend.
Risk assessment template updated
The BDA has updated its risk assessment, available only to members, who can now download version five of its pandemic risk assessment guidance. New additions include reference to the GDC’s guidance and a link to the record keeping document published earlier today.
Calling for zero work-caused fatalities due to COVID-19
The BDA is joining forces with the Society of Occupational Medicine, the British Medical Association and the Doctors’ Association to say that, with safe systems of work and PPE, no worker should die of work-acquired COVID-19.
England: Redeployment guidance for dental teams
NHS England has published guidance on redeployment for the dental team. This includes suggestions on potential duties and roles for members of the dental team, alongside the extension of NHS negligence cover for those redeployed to hospitals or GP practices. The guidance also recognises our position on the redeployment of clinical academic and hospital-based dentists. An NHS salary will be payable for solely private practitioners or those returning to the dental workforce.
Making the case for dentists to HMRC
The BDA has met with HMRC to discuss NHS payments during this period of shutdown. The HMRC has confirmed that, if dental practices are required to pass on NHS payments to associates, any non-contractual payments made by practices to associate dentists and other individuals will be considered a neutral factor in determining employment status for the duration of the Job Retention Scheme and Self Employed Income Support Scheme. They also raised the difficulty that many private dentists and practices are facing with HMRC.
Major news story from BBC[ii]
BBC News has reported that thousands of people in England are potentially unable to access urgent dental services in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. The BDA told the BBC that dentists in England are being bombarded by calls from patients in real pain, but there is often nowhere to send them. For patients with emergency dental problems, NHS England is in the process of creating local Urgent Dental Care hubs (UDCs) across the country. However, the BDA says only a tiny number of these sites have been set up so far.
GDC updates guidance[iii]
The GDC says its aim ‘continues to be to provide support and clarity where we are able to, based on the two core principles we set out on 23 March:
- Minimising the burden of time and attention we impose on registrants.
- Maximising the flexibility of registrants to manage their professional activities in response to the challenges of COVID-19.
The new guidance covers:
Redeployment
With reference to NHS England guidance on redeployment the GDC says it ‘fully supports’ dental professionals who choose to volunteer their services in this way.
Emergency registration
Although large numbers of doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals who have left their respective registers relatively recently have been returning to work, the GDC says they are unable to do the same for dentists for legal reasons.
Safety
One consequence of rigorous infection control is that patients cannot currently be offered the range of treatment they would normally expect. Refusing to treat a patient when it is not safe to do so is a perfectly proper professional judgement, which the GDC would not look to question. Similarly, if a judgement has to be made of whether there is treatment which can be offered safely, the GDC will not look to question the outcome ‘if a reasonable approach has been followed’.
Fake communications
The GDC has heard from some dental professionals and students who have been distressed and alarmed by fake communications purporting to come from official sources. Some of these have falsely claimed that the GDC may penalise professionals who do not volunteer to be redeployed to support the COVID-19 response. They are absolutely clear that volunteering is an individual decision and there is no possible question of that choice being a fitness to practise issue.
CPD
The GDC will be sympathetic to people who are finding it difficult to maintain their CPD in current circumstances, and they have made a commitment that nobody will be removed from the register because of a lack of access to CPD during the crisis period.
Financial support and the ARF
The GDC is hearing concerns very clearly both from individuals and representative bodies asking them to reduce or waive ARF payments this year. Their response is to say that since virtually all their income comes from registrants, this puts very real limits on our ability to be flexible. They say they are looking at what might be possible – for example in terms of an emergency instalment scheme – and will provide an update well before the beginning of the ARF round for dental care professionals in the summer.
[i] https://bda.org/advice/Coronavirus/Pages/latest-updates.aspx
[ii] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52197788
[iii] https://www.gdc-uk.org/news-blogs/blog/detail/blogs/2020/04/08/responding-to-covid-19-latest-updates-in-uncertain-times
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