No cunning plan for NHS dentistry
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- Published: Tuesday, 19 April 2022 07:48
- Written by Peter Ingle
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Blackadder’s assistant, Baldrick’s announcement that “I have a cunning plan,” became comic shorthand for ‘I have a ridiculous plan that really won’t help’.
The Department of Health appear to have updated the concept as the NHS dentistry crisis grinds on, into, ‘We will come up with a cunning plan soon.’ Again and again, we are told that important announcements are coming. Patients and dental teams just need to wait a little longer and all will be revealed. In difficult parliamentary debates about the lack of access to NHS dentistry, there is a strategy of accepting that the UDA contract has failed, but promising that something better is on the way. The CDO for England, Sara Hurley, speaking at the Dental Showcase last month, spoke of offering “hope” for NHS dentistry with talk of some changes in 2022, but could only provide “context not detail.”
In a recent written question Daisy Cooper, Liberal Democrat MP for St Albans and health spokesperson, tried to look beyond the recent emergency funding. “what steps,” she asked, was the Department taking, “to help patients who live in areas where no dental practices have (a) applied for or (b) been granted funding via the announced £50 million fund for additional dental appointments and are unable to access dental treatment as an NHS patient.” Given the reportedly poor uptake of the heavily publicised funding offer, her question may well have covered the entire nation.
Responding, Maria Caulfield, The Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Health and Social Care started by shedding some light on the elusive £50 million. “NHS England set regional budgets for the additional £50 million based on weighted 2020/21 baseline payments”, she began. Revealingly she then added that, “National Health Service regional teams are working with local providers to commission additional activity to improve access for patients. Regional commissioners are facilitating the distribution of the additional funding in all regions.” Which is a little disingenuous to say the least, since this answer was provided in mid-April and any funded work had to have been delivered by the end of March. But the Minister had not finished yet, concluding, “NHS dental practices have been asked to meet as many prioritised needs as is safely possible through urgent care, care for vulnerable groups and children, followed by delayed planned care. Patients can contact NHS England’s Customer Contact Centre for assistance in finding a local dental practice or NHS111 if seeking urgent dental care. We are currently developing further proposals for dental system reform with the aim of improving access for patients.” Apart from the hope that calling 111 and prioritising can somehow create capacity where none exists, ‘developing proposals for reform’ is now sounding a very familiar excuse for inaction.
Meanwhile in the House of Lords, Lord Jones of Cheltenham, another Liberal Democrat, received a reply to his workforce related question. He asked what plans there were to, “to train more (1) dentists, (2) orthodontists, (3) nurses, (4) cardiologists, and (5) neurologists.” Lord Kamal responded, “The Government currently has no plan to increase the number of dentists and orthodontists in training. Following a three-year review led by Health Education England, the Dental Education Reform Programme has been initiated, which will focus on tackling recruitment and retention challenges and attracting and retaining more dentists and dental care professionals in the National Health Service in geographical areas of need.” In contrast Lord Kamal was able to confirm that there was no cap on the number of training places for nurses at universities with an increase of 28% compared to 2019. For medicine there was an increase of 25% since 2018/2019.
16 years after the UDA contract was introduced no one knows how much longer dental teams and patients will have to wait to find out if, or how, NHS dentistry can be saved. There may not be many left listening by the time that any plan is finally revealed.
Image Courtesy https://www.flickr.com/photos/chad_k/3767365155
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