Following debates in both Houses of Parliament the Order permitting the GDC to appoint case examiners has been passed into law and will become effective later this year. The GDC ‘welcomed’ the Lords debate, where they were slated by Lord Hunt, and said that consultation on implementing the Order would start on Feb 1.
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Dr Margaret Wilson, (not pictured) the current editor of Dental Historian and a dental clinician and academic for nearly 40 years, has been named the new Honorary Curator of the British Dental Association (BDA) Museum. Dr Wilson was appointed following the retirement of Professor Stanley Gelbier, who had held the position since 1989. A former Honorary Curator of the Dental Hospital Museum in Manchester, she is currently editor of the Dental Historian journal for the Lindsay Society and President of her BDA Branch.
Dental website, for UK dentists and their teams, GDPUK.com had a record month in January 2016 with 44,492 unique visitors who made 153,880 visits to the site. This surpassed GDPUK's previous record of 39,304 uniques and 139k total visitors in December 2014.
During January, GDPUK's Twitter followers also reached a significant milestone, passing 5,000. Follow us @GDPUKcom
GDPUK forum also hit new milestones during rainy January, see below, when the Forum went past 20,000 topics created.
Access to NHS dentists was raised by Bradford South MP, Judith Cummins, at Prime Minister's Questions. She asked the Prime Minister to look at the lack of availability of NHS dentists there ‘as a matter of urgency’. Mr Cameron replied that there had been a ‘big increase’ in NHS dentistry since 2010 and reminded Labour about ‘huge queues around the block’ for an NHS dentist when Labour was in government.
The BDA says it is dismayed to learn that around 40 per cent of local councils have dropped their free stop-smoking services when incidences of mouth cancers are soaring. The chair of the BDA’s Health and Science Committee, Russ Ladwa, said: “Investing in stop-smoking services ought to be a mandatory rather than an optional service given the high prevalence of oral cancers and their poor mortality rates.”
Read more: BDA calls for smoking cessation funding to be ring fenced
Results from a large independent study on peri-implantitis have shown there are substantial differences between implant systems and the occurrence of peri-implantitis. Using the national data register of the Swedish Social Insurance Agency, Dr Jan Derks and colleagues from Gothenburg University in Sweden randomly selected 427 implant patients treated by more than 800 clinicians.
The General Dental Council (GDC) has set out a three year plan to make sure patients continue to receive the best quality dental care, entitled Patients, Professionals, Partners and Performance. It gives details on how the GDC will improve its own performance and efficiency by supporting dentists and dental care professionals to provide the best possible care to patients.
A ‘Your Dentist, Your Say’ report has been published by Healthwatch Lancashire, which says only 63% of people are ‘registered’ with NHS dentist. In Cornwall patients are complaining that there are year-long waiting lists. NHS England continues to claim that nationwide 93% of people were able to get a dental appointment.
In a press release, Denplan is ensuring UK dental practitioners are aware of concerns raised in both Houses of Parliament this week about the performance of the General Dental Council. Denplan shares these concerns, and others raised in Parliament. It believes that wholesale reform of healthcare regulation, as recommended to Government by the Law Commission in 2014, is long overdue in the interests of patients and the public.