Julian English discusses the lack of regard for dental laboratories and technicians in the recent changes to the NHS dental contract.
Not one word can be found on social media or on Google by way of guidance for laboratories and technicians after the dental contract changes announced last week.
It’s not a case of the laboratories associations and organisations being tardy. Instead, it’s much more likely that the dental NHS contract changes announced last week will have little to no effect on laboratories.
Lack of funding
Word around the camp fire is that the changes are so superficial in nature, they won’t change the main problem: underfunding.
In addition, the main problem of underfunding is probably never going to be fixed. This is because it’s linked to dentists’ NHS pensions.
Dentists’ NHS pensions is a hot topic with the treasury and Department of Health. Moreover, it has been widely understood that without increased investment, we cannot have increased access to NHS services.
And to prove the aforementioned point, the contract has been tinkered with and it is unlikely to increase access.
The change to band 3 payments is actually too small to increase more NHS treatments. However, the change to band 3 payments is good enough to help tackle the unseen and untreated cases after Covid-19 disruptions.
That is a great news for the general public. The variations to UDA bands finally acknowledge that more effort and time and materials are required for more complex treatments. This is 16 years overdue.
But laboratories are not mentioned.
Doesn’t go far enough
I have a lingering hope that more technical work and prostheses will be requested from technicians. This is a direct result of this change to the contract.
But I truly expect access will not be eased because the treatment will be taken up by existing patients.
The introduction of £23 minimum UDA value is a bit like saying no Mars bar should cost more than five pounds. The minimum UDA value has been welcomed, but it doesn’t go far enough.
It will benefit few practices and therefore almost no labs will benefit.
There is some good news. Dentists have an enhanced incentive to tackle the larger quantity of complex cases that developed from Covid-19 disruptions.
Complex cases often need lab work, so let’s be ready for it.
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