CDO urges patients to kick the 6-month check-up habit
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- Published: Thursday, 08 September 2016 07:04
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Speaking at the NHS Expo conference in Manchester, Dr Sara Hurley. CDO England, said the “worried well” are going to the dentist too often and are taking appointments away from patients who need them. She was launching a national preventive campaign, Smile4Life, which will encourage the public to treat dental health as a lifelong issue.
Speaking at the Health and Care Innovation Expo in Manchester, the CDO advised patients: “You should get a bespoke piece of advice based on your lifestyle, your experience of disease, and your dentists might say, ‘I only need to see you every 24 months.’ ” She added: “There is a public misconception that you need to see a dentist every six months,” she said. “The worried well are the ones that always come every six months. If you could persuade them that they only need to come every 12 months, then there are a group of patients who are desperate for access who could come.”
Controversially she commented: “It’s down to patients to say, ‘Why do I need to come back in six months?’ If you go to have your car MoT and he says, ‘Come back in six months,’ do you adhere to that advice?” she asked. But she was challenged by GDPC chair, Henrik Overgaard-Nielsen, who said: “Funding exists to provide care for barely half the UK population, so it’s inevitable that more motivated patients can put that system under strain. Successive governments have ensured there isn’t enough NHS dentistry to go around.”
Henrik added that dentists did follow official advice, saying: “The frequency of check-ups depends upon both clinical need and age. For some that can mean appointments every three months, for others every two years.” Nigel Carter, chief executive of the Oral Health Foundation, joined in saying this was an odd comparison and called NHS guidelines a “fudge” to free up more appointments in an overstretched system. He said dentists felt under pressure from some patients to have a six-month recall. “The patients are so used to that six-month recall that it gives them comfort. It’s very difficult for them [dentists] to resist pressure from patients.”
At the same conference Roy Lilley, a former NHS trust chairman and well-known commentator challenged Dr Hurley about the amount of money being made by dentists. “Dentistry has become a rich man’s hobby,” he said. “It has gone off the high street into lavish surroundings.”
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