Call For UDA ‘Parity’ Rejected
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- Published: Tuesday, 15 June 2021 07:52
- Written by Chris Tapper
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A plea to the Local Dental Committee Conference to back calls for the ‘equalisation’ of UDA rates was rejected at the weekend.
Dr Bill Powell proposed the motion by Liverpool LDC, which called for parity in the rates paid to practitioners.
He said that UDA rates were frozen at 2004 levels, the year from which UDA contracts were fixed by the NHS on the introduction of the ‘new’ contract in 2006.
Dr Powell said that in 2006, ‘Practise contracts were frozen at 2004 levels of pay and activity. However, the way we worked on the activity measured back in 2004 has no relevance to today’s way of working.”
Regarding the disparity in UDA values, Dr Powell remarked “Some PCT’s were more enlightened and in others, the figures were interpreted differently in wildly different ways.”
The Liverpool LDC representative said there “Has been a huge increase in regulatory burden affecting everybody equally.” He emphasised there is “no sensible reason” for the wide disparity in payments paid to practitioners for treatments such as crowns.
He said some practices could be funded by hundreds of thousands of pounds more than other practices, for exactly the same activity, every year.
Dr Powell said “Every year, the gap between well-funded and poorly funded practises gets wider. With each percentage increase this is causing unnecessary hardship for colleagues who cannot recruit or retain staff even if they pay a genuine 50% of the practice’s UDA rate, when a nearby colleague can pay a pound, two or even five pounds more per UDA.”
Dr Powell said that unless action was taken “Nothing will change until a whole new contract is unveiled - which has been promised next year for the last ten years.”
“There is no national dental health service, just a random collection of inequitable contracts that happened to be there in 2004.”
Calling for backing for the motion, he concluded “It is now time to put the ‘national’ back into NHS dentistry and as a group we can finally agree to send a signal that we demand a fair and equitable NHS system.”
Opposing the motion, Dr Roger Levy expressed his reservations, saying that while the motion was admirable, it would be taken (by the NHS) “As an opportunity to level down.”
Relaying his opposition to the motion through Chair of the conference Dr Stuart Allan, Dr Mark Green said the motion was “Wasting time debating the value of UDA when we’re all in agreement they should be abolished.
The motion was defeated with only 32% of delegates in favour of the motion. There were 44% against, with 24% abstentions.
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