Recovery Plan Branded “a complete failure” by the Public Accounts Committee
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- Published: Friday, 11 April 2025 09:57
- Written by Peter Ingle
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With a world trade crisis brewing, the publication of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) report on fixing NHS dentistry may have been a little overlooked. The report on the UK parliament website does not mince its words. “Government‘s attempts to improve access to NHS dentistry have been a complete failure.”
The PAC goes on to report that patients continue to suffer the effects of a lack of access to care. It then warns that there is no future for NHS dentistry without action from Government to go further in supporting the dental workforce.
The report confirms that at best, only around half of the English population might see an NHS dentist over a two-year period given current funding and contractual arrangements.
This, the latest in a series of parliamentary reports and committees pondering the state of NHS dentistry, will not have made cheerful reading for Health Ministers. Their predecessors though, may feel some relief that electoral defeat has taken the spotlight off of their own performance, given the damming assessment of their recovery plan.
The PAC considers that the four initiatives of the February 2024 dental recovery plan were never ambitious enough to meet its stated aim of ensuring that everyone who needed to see an NHS dentist would be able to so. Indeed they have, in the words of the report, “comprehensively failed.”
The New Patient Premium (NPP) which has now ended, offered credits for each eligible new patient and cost at least £88million. In the event it actually resulted in 3% fewer new patients seeing a dentist since its introduction in March 2024. The likely drop in access was predicted at the time of its introduction by many dentists.
The ‘golden hello’ recruitment scheme, offered incentive payments of £20k for 240 dentists. The value of the offer and conditions attached, left many questioning its appeal, and events have proved them right. As of February 2025 less than 20% of the expected 240 had been appointed.
The plan also placed great faith in the ability of mobile dental vans to deliver treatment in targeted communities. This was dropped early on for a variety of reasons including a lack of such vans and the dawning realisation that they would make little difference to the national numbers.
Setting a minimum UDA value of £28 failed to deliver any identifiable improvements. This is unsurprising as it affected a comparatively small number of contracts and was still well below the figure that might have retained some of the dentists that have since reduced or handed back their contracts.
The report agreed with previous select committees dating back as far as 2008, and found the current NHS dental contract not fit for purpose. It recognised that one fundamental issue for improving access was the discrepancy between the remuneration achieved delivering NHS and private work. Without improvements to NHS payments, it expects the trend of dentists moving exclusively to the private sector will continue.
While scrutinising the issue, the PAC asked NHSEngland if it would be better to rip the contract up and start again. NHSE responded that this was exactly what they were going to do, although it has now been announced that NHSE will be gone within the next two years.
Despite the government’s warm words about fundamental reform of the dental contract, the report highlighted that there were still no details on when this would happen or what it will look like. It did warn that further ‘tweaks’ to existing arrangements would not be enough.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown MP, Chair of the Committee, said: “This country is now years deep in an avalanche of harrowing stories of the impact of dentistry’s system failure. It is utterly disgraceful that, in the 21st century, some Britons have been forced to remove their own teeth. Last year’s Dental Recovery Plan was supposed to address these problems, something our report has found it has signally failed to do. Almost unbelievably, the Government’s initiatives appear to have actually resulted in worsening the picture, with fewer new patients seen since the Plan’s introduction.
Sir Geoffrey went on to say that NHS dentistry was “broken” and that the time for “tinkering at the edges” was over.
Referring to the abolition of NHSE he said: “This gives the Government the opportunity to completely reconfigure the way the NHS is run. In particular, so that more resources can be devoted to the local health boards who commission dentistry services. At the same time, a new contract should be negotiated with dentists so that all in this country will have proper access to a NHS dentist for the treatment they need. Parliament, the dental profession and patients all now need to know, as a matter of urgency, what comes next.”
The fulkl report can be read here: Fixing NHS Dentistry
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