There has been some confusion about Dental Vans. For a start they are not actual vans, but typically 7.5 ton lorries.
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One of the promised features of the dental recovery plan was to introduce ‘golden hellos’ for dentists willing to fill some of the most problematic gaps in NHS coverage. Guidance has now been issued that gives some detail about how this will work. Up to 240 dentists will be offered a payment of £20000 to work in under served areas for three years.
The British Dental Association (’BDA’) has written a polite, but firm request to NHS England CEO Amanda Pritchard seeking to secure for GDPs the same rights to paid, compassionate leave as the NHS is to offer its directly employed workers.
This is not a fairy tale. It is a story of two dentists, two similar charges, two dental regulators, and two very different outcomes. The regulators happen to be separated by the Irish Sea.
Read more: Goldilocks, the Three Bears, and Dental Regulation
There will always be a section of the public with an unerring instinct to seek out the most doubtful providers for their dental care. Whitening by beauticians, orthodontics from Smile Direct, and of course the excesses of “Turkey teeth” have all found eager customers.
The British Society of Paediatric Dentistry (BSPD) has announced the winners of its Outstanding Innovation Award for 2024.
In a story based upon its own analysis, the Financial Times has concluded that £150 million of the dental budget remains unspent and that it was also experiencing a “recruitment crisis.” That such a respected paper, a UK go-to for all matters economic, has published a story explaining to its influential readers the woes of NHS dentistry, confirms that awareness of the crisis is not restricted to dental teams and patients unable to find treatment. The paper goes on to describe the shortcomings of the NHS dental contract, describing it as “broken".
Announcing their much awaited Dental Recovery Plan (DRP) earlier this year, Health Secretary Victoria Atkins together with the Minister with responsibility for Primary Care Andrea Leadsom positively enthused about the role dental vans were going to play in delivering dental services to remote country and coastal locations.
“Transparency is important to building trust.”
This is hardly a controversial opinion, and was written by Stefan Czerniawski, GDC Executive Director, Strategy who is responsible amongst other roles, for communications and engagement. He wrote this sentence in a blog on the GDC website in late March 2024. It has taken the GDC no more than a month to show that these were empty words.