Minister Brushes Aside Recruitment Issues - BUPA Action Contradicts
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- Published: Tuesday, 04 April 2023 07:45
- Written by Peter Ingle
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Neil O’Brien is the Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Health and Social Care, who seems to have been given the dental brief. His one man mission to make predecessor Maria Caulfield look a model of honesty and competence, shows no sign of abating.
Readers may be thinking of his recent defence of the record rise in patient charges, his confusion over what constitutes a new contract, or his willingness to repeat the claim that all of the £50 million announced last January was spent on dentistry. But a recent commons exchange has underlined just how little value he attaches to the workforce trying to deliver NHS dentistry.
Rachel Maskel (Labour Co-operative, York Central) has been one of the group of MPs, no doubt prompted by her constituent’s access problems, who has been consistently asking informed questions about dentistry. Neil O’Brien’s three recent written answers to her latest questions should be on every NHS practices staff notice board.
The first question was: “To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will provide NHS dentists with (a) additional funding for advanced training and (b) paid annual leave.”
O’Brien’s answer, began by explaining that primary care dentistry was often provided by “small businesses” and that there were no plans to allocate additional funding for advanced training or leave. This was because contracts were made with, “independent providers to provide NHS care and as a result, pay and conditions are agreed between staff and the practice holding an NHS contract.” He concluded with the questionable assertion that, “This arrangement provides practices with the flexibility to recruit to meet local needs.”
Rachel Maskel’s second question was, “To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will provide access for all NHS dentists to NHS occupational health schemes.”
Returning to a favourite theme O’Brien answered that, “Pay and conditions are agreed between staff and the practice holding an NHS contract. This provides practices with the flexibility to recruit to meet local needs. The NHS occupational health scheme is a scheme that can be accessed by staff engaged primarily in the delivery of NHS services. NHS dentists that do not qualify for these schemes can access occupational health services via primary care.” GDPUK reader’s real world experience of access to occupational health might not bear this out.
The last question was, “To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether any of the pilot Integrated Care Boards have made an assessment of the potential merits of replacing the NHS Dental Contract.”
In answer O’Brien said that while ICBs would take over commissioning of dental services from NHS England on April 1st GDS and PDS agreements were nationally agreed frameworks, within which services must be commissioned. He then added that “NHS England is currently taking forward a programme of reform work to review the primary care dental contract with the first set of changes announced in July 2022.”
Around 24 hours after these exchanges BUPA gave their verdict on both the effectiveness of the July 2022 changes, and how the current system was affecting recruitment to meet local needs.
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