While dental experts have acknowledged the ‘significant efforts’ of the health minister in securing a funding increase, they also stressed that ‘this cannot be the end of the road’.
The health minister has confirmed an increased support fund from £1.6 million to £2 million for dental practitioners who continue to provide health service dental care in Northern Ireland. This will be accompanied by funding to uplift some dental fees and continuation of the Enhanced Child Examination Scheme – which provides a one-off payment for seeing new patients aged 10 or younger.
In March, data released by the General Dental Council (GDC) revealed that dentists in Northern Ireland were delivering a lower proportion of health service dentistry compared to colleagues in the rest of the UK. The findings also suggest that levels of health service provision are dropping fastest in the Northern Ireland region.
The British Dental Association (BDA) Northern Ireland said this lack of health service commitment was due to a ‘fundamental mismatch between fees paid by the government, and the true cost of providing modern dental care’. The association stressed that this funding gap is now ‘entirely unviable’, causing many practices to lose money through providing health service care.
‘NHS dentistry in Northern Ireland is on borrowed time’
In addition to the pledged funding, the BDA called for fundamental reform of the dental payment system.
Ciara Gallagher, chair of the BDA Northern Ireland Dental Practice Committee (NIDPC), said: ‘We’re on the same page as the minister. He doesn’t pretend these measures on their own will address all the challenges facing dentistry in Northern Ireland.
‘Elements of this package are clearly hard-won but are insufficient to draw a line under the crisis we now face. Ultimately, this isn’t a “stabilisation” plan if it can’t bring struggling practices back from the brink.
‘Our executive must now go further and faster and focus on the fundamentals. Dentists need to see a future in the NHS and know they won’t lose money treating NHS patients.
‘NHS dentistry in Northern Ireland is on borrowed time. We need to see more honesty, alongside real urgency and ambition if it’s going to survive.’
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