Some truths for NHS dental commissioners

A personal opinion, by Michael Watson.

Where I live, on the borders of Essex and Suffolk, has gone from a quiet rural community where dentists just got on with the job of treating their patients to the centre of a movement, Toothless in Suffolk, which aims to go nationwide as Toothless in England.

Two of their aims are to have an NHS dentist for everyone and reforms to the NHS dental contract that will encourage dentists to provide NHS treatments. Both of these will require more associates, who to put it simply are not there.

Throughout 2021, the British Dental Association [BDA] has been at the forefront of moves to tell politicians of the challenges facing dental services across the whole of the UK. It joined with Healthwatch England in calling on the Chancellor to provide vital funding for the recovery and rebuild of services, a move backed by 40 cross-party MPs.

David Hallsworth, a solicitor at BLM specialising in healthcare claims, discusses a potential surge in future dental claims as a result of thousands of children missing crucial check-ups during the pandemic.

GDC Chair - Registrant or not?

I have seen the soft campaigning in the form of opinion pieces and social media posts by dentists active in various positions in the British Dental Association (BDA) in the weeks and months before the General Dental Council (GDC) announced their new Chair to replace Dr William Moyes who is due to step down soon. The question that forms the title of this piece was running in my mind.

Since I retired a couple of years-or-so ago, I’ve had many dentistry-related dreams/nightmares. Many of these dreams find me suddenly planted back in a surgery somewhere, working on difficult patients with tricky clinical needs.