NHS dental practices were recently told to meet 85% of their pre-COVID UDA activity levels & 90% for UOA activity or face financial penalties. Despite the BDA at the time condemning the decision to impose these targets NHS England (NHSE) have not backed down and the BDA’s concerns seem to have fallen on deaf ears.
No commentsRead more: BDA calls for NHS England to rethink the UDA & UOA targets
In Wednesday’s round of Prime Minister’s Questions, Boris Johnson was asked by Labour’s Navendu Mishra what he would do to reduce backlog of NHS dental appointments and increase the number of NHS dentists across England.
Read more: Boris lies about record investments 'into dentistry, into the NHS'
The Government is set to announce a relaxation of Covid testing rules as part of efforts to shorten isolation periods and ease staffing shortages, the Daily Telegraph reports, amidst reports that staffing shortages across the economy are ‘crippling’ Britain.
Read more: Some relaxation of Covid testing rules reported - will it help dental practices?
The government has quietly diverted funds from the soft drinks levy which was targeted to tackle childhood obesity and improve children’s health to the general tax pot.
With the government’s recent bombshell that from 1 January 2022 NHS practices will be obliged to meet 85% of their pre-COVID activity levels & 90% for orthodontic contracts or face financial penalties, nearly two-thirds of practices currently estimate they are incapable of achieving these levels.
This in the face of the Omicron variant with practices already struggling with patient cancellations and staff sickness, these new, centrally imposed targets will be very difficult to meet.
A new scheme to help secondary schoolchildren on Jersey, who are not usually entitled to free dentistry, but whose dental care has been disrupted by Covid-19 has been introduced by their government. This contrasts with the situation in England where the number of children able to access NHS dentistry has declined dramatically.