The organisation describes its role and functions in its annual report

• We provide core services to both pay dentists and support primary care trusts in England and local health boards in Wales to successfully commission dental services for local communities. This includes contract management, clinical services, financial management, risk management and guidance and advice

• During 2007-08, we processed approximately 40 million dental activity forms, and made monthly payments to around 10,000 dentists and corporate bodies that provide NHS dental services

• The annual payments made on behalf of the NHS amount to approximately £2.5 billion in direct contract payments to dentists and approximately £550 million in patient charges

• Customer focus groups help us test and generate new ideas for our services and provide feedback to help take forward our service improvement programme

• Our dental services team is involved with a project which will help decide the future information and business requirements of the NHS for dentistry. We are looking to source a major new contract which will build new dental IT systems and other processes to benefit the NHS.

One section of the new website that may interest readers is information on Quarterly Vital Signs Reports.

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