Throughout the access crisis most of the government responses to questions about dentistry have come from junior ministers. So, it was unusual for the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care himself to offer some detail on Government thinking.
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A cost of living time bomb, resurgent inflation, the threat of blackouts, drought, war in Europe, and an absentee prime minister have failed to keep dental access stories from the headlines.
Read more: A Couple's Experience Of Dental Access Crisis Sparks Petition With Over 270k Signatures
The General Dental Council has said that the number of UK registered dental care professionals ‘remains stable’ following the July 31st renewal deadline.
Complaints have poured in from NHS patients in Shetland after NHS Shetland warned that it may have to consider charging patients for missed appointments.
As the dental profession basks in ‘90% of NHS practices are closed to new patients’ headline coverage broken by BBC News and conjugated throughout the media recently, the Shawn Charlwood, Chair of the BDA’s General Dental Practice Committee has issued an apocalyptic warning: “NHS dentistry is at a tipping point. If we’re not there already, we’re reaching the point of no return”.
Read more: "Have We Reached The Point Of No Return?" Charlwood Throws Down the Gauntlet
For the second time in 15 months, the General Dental Council is under the threat of action in the High Court if it doesn’t comply with a Freedom of Information Request.
The General Dental Council has published its registration and fitness to practise report for 2021.
The nature of indemnifiers work could be expected to temper their willingness to criticise the GDC. Despite this, John Makin, head of the Dental Defence Union (DDU), has had a letter published in The Guardian going public with some of the damage being done as a result of the regulators continued failings.
Read more: Indemnifier Calls Out GDC For Human Cost Of Its Failures
With a focus on the access crisis and contractual changes, the potential of preventive dentistry has taken something of a back seat. A good deal of the current backlog of untreated disease might have been prevented by nationwide fluoridation.