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Dominic Hughes and Catherine SnowdonBBC News
People needing urgent dental treatment and patients requiring complex care will be prioritised under government plans to improve access to NHS dentists in England.
The proposals could mean a saving of £225 for patients requiring numerous appointments for complicated treatments.
For years, many patients have found it increasingly hard to find a dentist, with some towns in England referred to as “dental deserts”, with no access to NHS dentists at all.
The British Dental Association (BDA) said that without more funding and real reform, the plans wouldn’t solve current issues.
Speaking on Radio 4’s Today programme, health minister Stephen Kinnock said the plans were intended to “prioritise” urgent care.
He said there was “a lot of unnecessary routine care going on” in NHS dentistry services at the moment.
If a patient has “good oral health” he said they don’t need to see a dentist “more than about once every two years”.
He said the current practice of most patients being offered NHS check-ups every six months was “not the right use” of dentists’ time, and added that it was “sucking up a lot of money in NHS dentistry”.
Under the current system, which dates back to 2006, dentists are paid for what are called Units of Dental Activity, known as UDAs.
Different procedures – fillings, extractions and more complicated work – are assigned a different number of UDAs.
Dentists who provide NHS care have a contract that says how many UDAs they will carry out each year and are paid accordingly.
But this has meant that more money was available to dentists for carrying out simple check-ups, rather than spending longer with patients who needed more complex, time-consuming care.
For years dentists have been complaining that the contract for NHS work fails to cover the costs of what they’re being asked to carry out.
As a result many dentists have been walking away from NHS work – meaning it’s increasingly hard for people to access care. There are parts of the country where there is simply no access to NHS dentistry.
‘Chronic underfunding’
Under the government plans, there would be new incentives for dentists to offer longer-term treatments for major issues such as gum disease and tooth decay through the NHS.
Currently, a patient with tooth decay in several teeth or severe gum disease – both of which require complex treatment – would need to be treated over multiple appointments, which is costly and time consuming.
But under proposed changes to the dental contract for NHS work, dental practices would be able to offer patients a single comprehensive package of treatment over a longer period, tailored to their needs.
And ministers argue that this could save a patient up to £225 in fees.
Shiv Pabary, chair of the BDA’s General Dental Practice Committee said “a dental crisis” had come about directly as a result of the contract put in place in 2006.
“The reforms announced today are trying to tweak a system that’s broken.”
He added that until the “chronic underfunding” and wider systemic problems were addressed, NHS dentistry would continue to fail to work for “dentists and for patients”.
“To try and deliver comprehensive care within the same budget that we have at the moment is going to be hugely challenging.”
Mr Kinnock said the government had a “massive issue to fix” in dental care and was negotiating with the BDA on a “radical overhaul” of the NHS dentistry contract.
