DENTAL PRACTICE P


Providing information, direction, education and entertainment for the dental team


NHS White Paper says little about dentistry


RIMARY Care Trusts (PCTs) will cease to exist aft er 2013, according to the coaliti on


government’s white paper, Equity and Excellence: Liberati ng the NHS, published last month. Health Secretary, Andrew Lansley,


said PCTs will be abolished because they will no longer have a role. “If we don’t have a job for primary care trusts to do, it doesn’t make sense to be paying thousands of people to be doing it,” he said. Most commissioning will be done


by general practi ti oner-led consorti a. The rest, including general dental practi ce, will be done by a new NHS commissioning board. Most of the media att enti on has focused on this new role for GPs and the fact that they will have some £80 billion of NHS funding in their hands, but in the main they will be commissioning care from hospitals. More important to denti sts will


be the NHS Commissioning Board, which will commission the services that GPs themselves provide as well as denti stry, pharmacy and ophthalmic services, eff ecti vely making it responsible for the whole of primary care. It will also have a role in providing nati onal leadership for the consorti a, encouraging pati ent parti cipati on and choice as well as allocati ng funds for commissioning. Litt le detail has been given of this


new Board, which will become a powerful force within the NHS. The White Paper describes it as a “lean and expert organisati on, free from day-to-day politi cal interference”. It may decide that it needs some


regional offi ces. It will be set up as a special health authority next April. A new Health Bill will give it a


statutory basis, with a view to the Board going live in April 2012. From then Strategic Health Authoriti es will be abolished followed a year later with the end of Primary Care Trusts. The forthcoming Health Bill will


set up a Public Health Service. Aft er their aboliti on, PCT responsibiliti es for local health improvement will transfer to local authoriti es, which will employ the Director of Public Health jointly appointed with the Public Health Service. The latt er will set local authoriti es nati onal objecti ves for improving populati on health outcomes. It will be for local authoriti es


to determine how best to secure those objecti ves, including by commissioning services from providers of NHS care. “To strengthen democrati c legiti macy at local level, local authoriti es will promote the joining up of local NHS services, social care and health improvement,” the White Paper says.


NHS dentistry With the demise of PCTs, the new arrangements will mean the end of local commissioning. Instead of diff erent contracts in each PCT area, there will be one nati onal contract. The White Paper says on this: “Following consultati on and piloti ng, we will introduce a new denti stry contract, with a focus on improving quality, achieving good dental health and increasing access to NHS denti stry, and an additi onal focus on


the oral health of schoolchildren.” Responding


to the White Paper, General Dental Practi ce Committ ee chair, Dr John Milne, gave further insight into the way that denti stry will be treated within the new NHS. He wrote: “The White Paper does not address dental services in detail nor exactly what the implicati ons of the new framework will be, but it is promising to see that primary care denti stry will be commissioned by a new NHS Board. Safeguarding dental services, whether provided by family practi ces or the salaried and specialist services, is paramount.” He conti nued: “It is reassuring


that the Government has reiterated its pledge to pilot changes to the dental contract and we are urging the Minister to conti nue developing the pilots testi ng out the recommendati ons in the Steele report. We are also pleased to see the emphasis on outcomes based on proven clinical indicators, rather than targets, and that quality will be incenti vised. “The drive to commission services


around care pathways appears to endorse the principles contained in the Steele Review, which is also welcome. We look forward to more detailed proposals on how the Government intends to implement these changes.” • See Michael Watson, page 4


GDC criticised by regulators’ regulator T


HE Council for Healthcare Regulatory Excellence (CHRE), the body that regulates the


regulators, has criti cised the General Dental Council for its fi tness to practi se procedures. It was concerned with the ti me


taken for cases to progress through its processes and the quality of its case management system. The CHRE considered that these matt ers


needed to be addressed as a matt er of urgency. The GDC had an unexpected 40 per


cent increase in its fi tness to practi se workload since 2008/09. However, it currently takes an average of 18 months for a case to progress from receipt of complaint to a fi nal hearing decision. In additi on, the GDC has a 12-month backlog of cases waiti ng for a hearing date.


The CHRE acknowledged that the


GDC was addressing these delays, through restructuring and increasing the number of hearings; but it warned that delays impacted on the fairness of the process as well as the GDC’s ability to promptly protect the public by “effi ciently progressing appropriate cases to a fi nal fi tness to practi se hearing”. Continued on page 4


REPORT


Dental hygiene international symposium...page 40


Lansley: no role for PCTs aft er 2013


FOCUS Implants and Tissue


Regeneration...page 16 Vol. 48, No. 8 AUGUST 2010


INSIDE THIS ISSUE CLINICAL


Delivering maximum results in cosmetic treatment...page 14


SPOTLIGHT A corporate with non-


corporate ideals...page 26


PRODUCTS Innovation in implant


dentistry...page 32


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