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The Department of Health and Social Care has missed an opportunity by repeating exactly the same model in the next wave of prototypes, Kevin Lewis says. There’s no mistaking the irritating sound of a can being kicked down the road, especially after more than a decade of hearing the same can being kicked down the…
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As the Government helped to push Carillion towards collapse, could it be doing the same for NHS dentistry, Kevin Lewis asks. The Carillion story has to some extent gate-crashed the traditional midwinter NHS party. This is the time of year when the NHS’s valiant efforts to claw its way through the most demanding months of…
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Kevin Lewis explains why a royal college is so important for dentistry as FGDP looks to become independent. The year 1992 was a defining year for UK general dental practitioners in many different ways. Those readers who were around may recall that it was in the July of that year that the gross fees paid…
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With the end of the year rapidly approaching, Kevin Lewis looks back at 2017. By my calculation this is the 37th consecutive year that I have written a December column either for this publication, or for another one that I used to write for until 11 years ago. You can’t re-use the same yuletide puns…
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Fraudulent claims by ‘imaginary’ patients aren’t the fault of NHS dentists, Kevin Lewis says. Climate change may be making it difficult to work out what season we are in these days, but there is one sure-fire way to tell that the Christmas holiday period and the depth of winter (however deep that proves to be)…
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Kevin Lewis discusses the coming together of the BDA Conference and The Dentistry Show. There being less than 50 filling days left to Christmas, it’s time to get the party started. What do you get if you cross an elephant with a kangaroo? Very large holes all over Australia. What do you get if you…
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We need to stop selling dentistry and start selling the benefits of dentistry, Kevin Lewis says. Isn’t it strange when somebody says something that sparks a recollection dating back many years and which you discover dusty but intact in your memory bank? Where do we store all this stuff – and why? Somebody was commenting…
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The Department of Health should be a little more bothered about the missing 50% of patients who can’t get access to an NHS dentist, Kevin Lewis says. It was the first week of September and there was the first chill wind of autumn in the air, both when you stepped outside your front door and…
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The arrogance and self-delusion of NHS procurement staff is costing NHS trusts more money, Kevin Lewis argues. August can be a pretty quiet month in healthcare, with a great deal of nothing very much happening. But not this year. In fact it has all been rather fun to observe from the beach, pool, garden, decontamination…
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Kevin Lewis questions why we are continuing with the UDA system when there are other ways to deliver quality dentistry. Not quite midsummer when you come to read this, I accept, but it was when I wrote it. Bear with me. ‘I have had a most rare vision. I have had a dream, past the…
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Kevin Lewis examines the impact of recent political and judicial events on NHS dentistry. I write this column in the immediate aftermath of the general election, so it would seem a bit odd if I failed to mention it. A hung parliament and all the ensuing compromises and concessions was about the last thing the…
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The GDC’s intentions are sound, even if they do get lost in business jargon, says Kevin Lewis. Some years ago I was lecturing in Istanbul at the Turkish Dental Association Conference. My command of the English language is streets ahead of my Turkish, so like most of the other international speakers I was speaking in…
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The GDC should be holding dental corporates to account the same way it does for individual practice owners, Kevin Lewis says. Amongst the amendments made in 2005 to The Dentists Act were changes to the arrangements relating to the involvement of limited companies in dentistry. A limited number of dental bodies corporate (DBCs) had been…
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In part two of his article, Kevin Lewis looks at reflections, illuminations and tales of the unexpected from the GDC’s discussion document, Shifting the balance: a better, fairer system of dental regulation. Having dissected out the key themes of Shifting the balance in the first of these articles, we will now turn our attention more…
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The government is grossly misleading patients over who bears the cost of NHS dental treatments, believes Kevin Lewis. The fact that the NHS dental charges levied from non-exempt patients were increased as from 1 April 2017 by about 4.5% – well ahead of the rate of inflation – is noteworthy in itself. The fact that…
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Kevin Lewis takes the opportunity to look more closely at the issues raised in the General Dental Council’s discussion document, Shifting the balance: a better, fairer system of dental regulation. Part one – core themes Everyone needs a plan. The GDC published Shifting the Balance earlier this year alongside the latest (2017) update on its…
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A new look at CPD is a welcome sign for dental professionals, says Kevin Lewis. We have entered the final few weeks of the initial call for comments in response to the the GDC’s discussion document, Shifting the Balance: towards a better, fairer system of dental regulation. For that reason I will take the opportunity…
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Kevin Lewis discusses potential issues after the discount rates applied to personal injury claims were dropped from +2.5% to -0.75%. The past few weeks have brought several stark reminders of the multiplicity of challenges facing NHS general dental practitioners, and of the paucity of options available to them in terms of managing their predicament without…
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Kevin Lewis compares patients’ perceptions of dentists in the UK and the US. As the deadline for this column approaches, I find myself in the the US where I am lecturing at a conference in Chicago, Illinois, and combining this with some meetings in the adjacent state of Indiana. But this temporary separation from the…
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