The Government has announced that dental patients’ charges will rise by 5% from April this year and by a further 5% from April 2017. The BDA has criticised these increases with Henrik Overgaard-Nielsen, chair of the GDPC, saying: “This unprecedented hike in dental charges will only serve to discourage the patients that are most in need of care. For government these increases may be a source of easy money, but they will only undermine the relationship between patients and practitioners.”

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Read more: Patient charges to rise by 5% this year and again next

Sky News reports that Southern Dental, the chain based in Sussex, is contemplating a sale that would yield an estimated £80million for its owners. Sky News understands that Dr Mazdak Eyrumlu, who founded Southern Dental a decade ago, has retained advisers to draw up plans for an auction of part or all of the company. However Southern Dental could not be reached for comment.

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Read more: Dental chain to be sold for £80m - report

The BDA has responded to the Review Body (DDRB) award of a 1% pay-rise for dentists for 2016/17. GDPC chair, Henrik Overgaard-Nielsen, said: “This modest uplift will leave many dentists struggling to provide needed investment in training, equipment and materials.”  Robert Donald, Scottish Dental Practice Committee chair said: ““For Scottish GDPs ‘more of the same’ means a deepening crisis of morale, and an inability to deliver investment in practices.”

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Read more: BDA reacts to ‘modest’ increase from DDRB

The Chief Dental Officer for England, Sara Hurley, has outlined the key themes of her proposed integrated strategy for oral health and dental care. In a speech to the FGDP(UK), she called for “more joint endeavours - professional, geographic and conceptual”, “greater national direction” over the responsibilities of Local Offices, and “training and support… to ensure that all NHS England Commissioners know what quality oral care looks like”.

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Read more: CDO outlines key themes for oral health strategy

Dr Milad Shadrooh, a dentist from Basingstoke in Hampshire, is making his name as ‘The Singing Dentist’ – the man behind the eyebrows and funny quips in a series of videos. He told a local paper about his first video: “It all started out as a bit of a joke really, there’s so many bad, illegal tooth whitening products out there that can be really damaging to people in the long term that I made a video and put it on Facebook and different forums and groups for the dentists to see.”

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Read more: YouTube Singing Dentist in the news