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It would take the mother of all sticking plasters to fix the NHS – and it has been tried many times, but maybe NHS dentistry is part of a different NHS that the politicians forgot to tell us (and the public) about, Kevin Lewis wonders. I expect we’ve all heard the joke about the traveller who…
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‘Like all good Christmas stories and melodies, it will probably bring a tear to the eye – but for all the wrong reasons’: Kevin Lewis provides the festive soundtrack for the dental profession. As we approach another Christmas and the sound of festive carol singers drifts from street to street and door to door through…
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Kevin Lewis explains why recent seismic events in Westminster have been overshadowing subtle changes happening behind the scenes. When somebody finally writes the book describing the events in British politics over the last few months, it’s going to be a struggle to decide whether it belongs on the ‘fiction’ or ‘non-fiction’ shelves. While it’s true…
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Don’t believe everything you hear via social media, chatrooms and the professional grapevine, warns Kevin Lewis. Just because the GDC gets a decision wrong doesn’t make everybody else right. I don’t know whose original truism I am purloining and misquoting here – my apologies. ‘Comedy of errors’ was an option, but what follows is not…
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In the 1960s – 1980s, the NHS system actively encouraged dentists to save and restore teeth, thereby creating today’s ‘heavy metal’ generation, explains Kevin Lewis. Yet the NHS is conveniently ignoring its ongoing responsibility to these patients, and abandoning them to an uncertain future. Something was stirring in the 1960s and 70s, which is still…
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Farmers and dentists have more in common than you’d think, explains Kevin Lewis. Both suffer the financial consequences of inadequate government policies. I was grafting away on this column, when I was distracted by hearing an interview on TV in the background. The interviewee was saying that in 30-plus years in the business, he had…
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As dentists leave NHS dentistry and switch to private, Kevin Lewis asks if the government will try other tactics to bolster the NHS workforce. Here in the UK we appear to have more dentists than ever before. But tens of thousands of patients report that they cannot access dentistry. Not routine NHS dentistry anyway, and…
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Kevin Lewis considers the contradictions of NHS demands and the impact it has on the motivation of the profession. I would begin by making clear that I am not expressing any kind of view over the long-running saga that culminated in the police investigations in Durham and London. Nor the Sue Gray Report (not yet…
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Kevin Lewis discusses how personal grievances are not a legitimate part of whistleblowing, but tend to flourish under its guise. I was lecturing in Australia about 10 years ago just as a new national law came into force. The law was introducing the requirement of ‘mandatory notifications’ covering all registered healthcare professionals. This created a…
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Kevin Lewis discusses the war in Ukraine and how fortunate we are in the UK to be untouched by such events. A week may be a long time in politics (sic). But the intervals between my successive copy deadlines for this column seem to get shorter with every issue. I penned my first regular column…
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Kevin Lewis explores the unintended consequences that have led to vicarious liability. I have lost count of the number of times when I have either witnessed, or experienced at first hand, this frustrating phenomenon. Somebody makes a decent enough decision in order to deal with a particular issue or solve a particular problem – but…
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As conversations concerning NHS dentistry continue to reverberate, Kevin Lewis offers up his own take on the unfolding crisis. Albert Einstein wasn’t a dentist, as far as I am aware. We will never know for sure whether or not he ever made that much-quoted observation that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing…
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Kevin Lewis considers the abrupt arrival of Omicron and the imminent implications of the vaccine mandate. Practice owners and employers must be feeling a bit picked on. So thick and fast are the new challenges and complications arriving at their door. When I say ‘new’ I probably mean ‘new but hauntingly familiar for some…
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As 2021 draws to a close, Kevin Lewis considers the state of the profession and an end to TV’s most luminous white smile. You can safely put away your dark glasses. Let us all give thanks for the recently announced decision of Rylan Clark-Neal to cast aside his luminescent white veneers. They have graced (or…
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Kevin Lewis turns his attention to information, misinformation and disinformation. Time will tell whether Donald Trump will turn out to have been a historian, a commentator or a clairvoyant. He may have popularised the term ‘fake news’ and certainly disseminated a shedload of the stuff while claiming all other versions of the truth to be…
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Ready, aim, fire…Kevin Lewis turns his attention to the politics of dentistry, and why they seem way off the mark. We may not have had the promised full scale inquiry into dentistry, which became a casualty of the dissolution of parliament and the General Election in late 2019. However, dentistry has been the subject of…
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Kevin Lewis reflects on what the year has brought us, including some new additions to our daily vocabulary. As we reach the end of a year like no other, naturally we must pause and take stock. I have a feeling that 2020 will be etched in the memories of most of us for the rest…
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If we shoot for the moon but miss, asks Kevin Lewis, will we all end up seeing stars? Encore un fois. Not quite a lockdown perhaps, but quite a knockdown for morale anyway. The mood differs compared to the spring. With blind faith and optimism supplanted by a divisive cynicism about compliance. Contact tracking and…
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Stars of Dentistry is back! We’re publishing some of our past Stars of Dentistry lectures on Dentistry Online, completely free. This week in the Stars of Dentistry Online series, we look back at Kevin Lewis and his lecture ‘Dentolegal challenges – yesterday, today and tomorrow’. You can see the complete lecture below. Nobody in UK…
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