Bristol is aiming to become a low-sugar city, curbing sweet drinks and snacks to tackle poor dental health and obesity. Latest figures show that 57% of adults and a quarter of the city’s five-year-olds have tooth decay. There are 20,000 diabetics in the city and in the past three years 227 people had a limb amputated because of the disease.
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The BDA believes that dentists could ease the much-reported pressures on Accident and Emergency (A&E) departments if more in-hours urgent care slots were commissioned. The Chair of the BDA’s General Dental Practice Committee, Henrik Overgaard-Nielsen, has today written to Chief Dental Officer (CDO) for England Sara Hurley seeking a meeting to establish if such an agreement can be reached.
Read more: BDA asks for more urgent care slots to be commissioned
The General Dental Council (GDC) will be publishing, on January 26, initiatives to make the current system of regulation better for patients and fairer for dental professionals by shifting the balance of activity onto prevention as part of a series of wide-ranging proposals to improve dental regulation. The plans cover work that is already under way as well as new proposals.
Scientists say that they have found a way to stimulate the stem cells in teeth using a drug containing a GSK-3 inhibitor so that dentine, which is found underneath tooth enamel, regrows. This research has been highlighted in the media as the ‘end of fillings’ and lead author Prof Paul Sharpe is confident that it could get ‘quickly into clincs’.
The British Dental Association (BDA) has responded to figures from the Local Government Association (LGA) revealing 160 children and teenagers are undergoing tooth extractions under general anaesthesia in hospitals in England every day. BDA chair Mick Armstrong said: “The millions spent on child tooth extractions in hospitals are emblematic of the government's disinterest in oral health.”
Read more: BDA: Government failure is driving child tooth extraction epidemic
HMRCs new Making Tax Digital (MTD) scheme will present ‘a severe headache’ for the majority of dentists and be yet another cost that they will have to cover. That’s according to NASDAL. Alan Suggett, media officer of NASDAL said: “The aims of the scheme appear to be laudable in terms of simplifying and making the tax system more efficient. However, the dental sector will face specific challenges.”
Read more: Making Tax Digital will be ‘severe headache’ for dentists