The Health and Social Care Information Centre (www.hscic.gov.uk) has published its survey into motivation and morale among dentists. About half of dentists have good motivation, but only a quarter have good morale. There are strong variations in the different countries of the UK, between principals and associates. Hours worked and extent of NHS practice are also indicators of motivation and morale.
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Wesleyan, the specialist financial services provider, today announced the acquisition of DPAS, a major provider of practice-branded dental plans. This acquisition will strengthen Wesleyan’s position in the dental market, where it already provides a range of personal and commercial services to the dental profession. The transaction is subject to regulatory approval.
Data published by NHS England shows that, over the first three months of them taking part in the Friends and Family Test, dental practices consistently had 97% of patients saying they would recommend the service and only 1% saying they would not. More than six out of ten dental practices that submitted details of their patients’ ratings received 100% positive scores.
Read more: Patients overwhelmingly confident in their NHS dentist
Approximately 700 dental practices, across 21 Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) are moving to a new Dental Electronic Referral Service (DERS) in the coming months. NHS England have recently contracted with Vantage Diagnostics Ltd, a UK leading provider of electronic referral management. The first tranche of dentists will be using the new service before the end of the year.
Read more: Kent Surrey and Sussex move to Vantage for referral management
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has called on healthcare professionals to help curb the inappropriate prescribing of antibiotics. The Faculty of General Dental Practice (UK) endorses the responsible use of antibiotics, and the ‘right dose at the right time’ approach advocated by the NICE guidelines, but would express caution about any plans to involve the regulator as a method to manage the over-prescribing of antibiotics.
Read more: FGDP cautions against involving regulator in antibiotic prescribing
Researchers have uncovered evidence of food and potential respiratory irritants entrapped in the dental tartar of 400,000-year-old teeth at Qesem Cave near Tel Aviv, the site of many major discoveries from the late Lower Paleolithic period. The research provides direct evidence of what early Palaeolithic people ate and the quality of the air they breathed inside Qesem Cave.
Read more: 400,000-year-old dental tartar provides earliest evidence of human-made pollution