Leaked Memo - Corporate Named By MP
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- Published: Wednesday, 10 February 2021 10:08
- Written by Chris Tapper
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MyDentist has been named as the large corporate which instructed its staff to prioritise dental examinations over patients needing urgent treatment.
A report by GDPUK on 29th January revealed a major dental corporate had issued the instruction following a BBC investigation into dentistry during the COVID-19 pandemic “Leaked Corporate Memo: Target Checkups.”
Bradford South MP Judith Cummins named MyDentist as the corporate involved during a Commons debate in which she questioned Health Secretary Matt Hancock.
Ms Cummins said “Despite assurances by the Secretary of State and the Minister, it is now clear that the newly imposed NHS dentistry targets are in fact undermining patient access to urgent treatments during the pandemic as I warned they would.
She went on “Last week, a whistleblower at the UK’s largest dental chain, having over 600 practices, MyDentist, sent me an internal memo that advised them to prioritise routine checkups over treatments in order to meet the new target. So will the Secretary of State look at this urgently agree to revise these targets to ensure that they do not undermine patient care. As currently, the system as it stands incentivises routine checkups above those patients in severe pain.”
In reply, Matt Hancock said: “I want to thank our nation’s dentists who have worked incredibly hard to get dentistry services going again. It is very important that we support them and that the financial incentives underpin the need to restart as much as is possible.
It is of course challenging to deliver services given that there are so many aerosol-generating procedures, and I will ask the dentistry Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill), to speak to the hon. Lady and perhaps meet her to discuss these ongoing challenges.
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