Lord Colwyn tells fellow peers about the problems facing dentists in the NHS
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- Published: Monday, 11 November 2019 07:47
- Written by News Editor
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Before Parliament was dissolved, retired dentist Lord Colwyn made a speech in the House of Lords saying that that, for a variety of reasons, newly qualified dentists were increasingly deterred from the prospect of a career offering NHS dentistry. He cited as reasons suspicion about the way that the GDC operates as well as ‘the onerous and detested dental contract’.
Lord Colwyn said: “Whether it is the onerous and detested dental contract, which fails to incentivise the prevention of tooth decay, or the fact that government funding for NHS dentistry per capita in England has fallen by 29% in real terms since 2010, we face a genuine recruitment crisis for NHS dentists”.
He pointed out that three-quarters of practice owners reported struggling to fill vacancies—up from half just two years ago. Practices are closing in large numbers as they struggle to recruit and to make ends meet under the current dental contract. “Owners must invest their own funds to set up and operate the practice, all at considerable personal risk. Unless there is a change of direction, we will soon face an even greater exodus of dentists from the NHS”, he told the House.
Lord Colwyn said it was sad to hear from the British Dental Association that younger dentists increasingly report being more risk averse in their practices by, for example, referring patients to hospital more frequently, thus putting further pressure on other parts of the NHS. “Such is the culture of fear in which they now operate”, he added.
It was ‘crucially important’ that any learning from clinical incidents takes place without recourse to a ‘blame game’, he said adding “When placing dental treatment under investigation, we must act in a proportional manner, particularly in cases of so-called “never events”. For example, removing the wrong tooth is of course both unfortunate and alarming for a patient, but it is vastly different from removing the wrong kidney or limb.” He therefore hoped that any new investigatory framework for clinical incidents would be able to differentiate between the varying severities of incident both fairly and transparently.
To read full speech go to:
https://www.theyworkforyou.com/lords/?id=2019-10-29b.887.3&s=speaker%3A13550#g917.0
A similar story about FGDP(UK) & Commons Health Committee published concurrently.
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