The government has said a recovery plan for NHS dentistry will be published in 2024 – but failed to commit to a date.
In response to the Commons Liaison Committee yesterday, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said the recovery plan will arrive next year.
First pledged in April, Sunak did not commit to a specific date, sparking calls from the profession for ‘real ambition’.
‘It will be in the new year,’ Sunak said. ‘Obviously there’s £3 billion that’s been invested in NHS dentistry with a reformed contract which is helping.’
However, the British Dental Association (BDA) stresses that the PM has no credible basis to cite this budget or label tweaks to the contract as ‘progress’.
Unchanged budget
British Dental Association chair Eddie Crouch said: ‘The Prime Minister pledged to “restore” NHS dentistry. Tweaks to a failed contract and a budget that’s unchanged in a decade won’t deliver that.
‘We need real ambition. After eight months of waiting, this ‘recovery’ plan needs to pass the Ronseal test.
‘It has to give dentists thinking twice about their futures a reason to stay in the NHS. Otherwise, what’s the point?’
Access crisis
This comes as the government says it must do more to ensure that everyone in the UK can access an NHS dentist.
The comments were made following a Health and Social Care Committee report in which ministers were called on to end a ‘crisis of access’ that had led to high levels of pain and distress.
The government accepted the majority of the committee recommendations, including:
- The ambition [for everyone who needs an NHS dentist to be able to access one] must ensure access within a reasonable timeframe and a reasonable distance. The government must set out how they intend to realise this ambition and what the timeline will be for delivery. It is vital that this ambition is the central tenet of the government’s forthcoming dental recovery plan. Once the plan has been published, we will revisit the recommendations in this report to assess it against this criteria
- The government and NHS England should roll-out a patient information campaign with the aim of improving awareness of how NHS dentistry will work and ensure the public are better informed about what they are entitled to
- Practices should abide by NICE recall guidelines of up to two years for most adult patients. They should recognise the need for more regular recall for some. But people should not automatically be removed from dentists’ registers of NHS patients without good reason. This should be monitored by NHS England to ensure it is being carried out.
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