NHS England has agreed that the two month rule will be not applicable across all contracts for financial year 2016/2017 only. Following pressure from the BDA they have recognised that this is necessary because of ‘delays in attaching existing dental performers to dental contracts.’ The performance of Capita has also been raised in the House of Commons.
No comments
Tony Kilcoyne has been elected as a UK-wide member of the BDA’s Principal Executive Committee. Others elected were East Midlands and Central - Alison Lockyer, Greater London - Russ Ladwa, South East - Victor Chan and Scotland - Derek Harper.
The Faculty of General Dental Practice (UK) is supporting Mouth Cancer Action Month by highlighting the critical role of dentists in detecting mouth cancers. The FGDP(UK) says general dental practitioners are uniquely placed to check for signs of oral cancer during the routine examination, and to make referrals where they suspect a patient may have cancer or a pre-cancerous lesion.
Read more: FGDP(UK) says dentists are best-placed to detect mouth cancer
Only 12% of older Americans have some form of dental insurance and fewer than half visited a dentist in the previous year, suggests new Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health research on Medicare beneficiaries. The findings, published in the December issue of the journal Health Affairs, suggest an enormous unmet need for dental insurance among those 65 and older in the United States.
The Website PoliticsHome reports that the soft drinks industry has increased its lobbying of the Government as it tries to get the sugar tax watered down. Soft drinks lobbyists have been holding drinks receptions and have increased the number of supportive adverts on political websites.
The BDA has announced it is planning to mount a legal challenge on behalf of NHS GDPs over NHS England’s approach to deductions from patient charge revenue. BDA Vice Chair Eddie Crouch said: “NHS England’s heavy handed approach to patient charge revenue means many dentists suffer financial losses simply for providing their patients with needed care. So we have taken legal advice about the legitimacy of their approach, and our lawyers say there is a strong case to be made.
Read more: BDA plans legal action over patient charge deductions