September 2010 Michael Watson


Silly season more serious this year


N Surgery design - We offer you: -


• Site visit(s) to determine client requirements, fl ooring dimensions and current service layouts.


• Full brief – including client appointments at our showroom.


• Demonstration of extensive variety of products based on ergonomics, specifi cation, aesthetics and types of dentistry.


• Create and discuss several concepts leading to fi nal solution and CAD plans and elevations.


• Provision of service plans and requirements.


• Full project management and QA from start of project to completion with dedicated Project Engineer to manage and provide customer support.


• Experienced building and service crews available to keep “down-time” and disruption to a minimum whilst maintaining a high level of quality.


• Friendly, knowledgeable service from trained and experienced staff.


Hague Dental Supplies off er sales, design and engineering services to the dental industry.


In London, Hague have one of the largest showrooms in the UK, viewings are available by appointment (inc out of hours).


Hague also off er engineering and maintenance service packages on your equipment at agreed intervals to suit your needs. At the depot, in Surrey, Hague stock a huge selection of parts and equipment – in order to get you back up and running fast in an emergency.


Engineering solutions – We offer you: -


• Typically a “one call-out” solution from our own engineers.


• Full diagnostic and repair facilities with trained, experienced engineers.


• Service packages for new and existing equipment at agreed intervals.


• A vast stock of parts and equipment available from our depot in Surrey – in order to get you back up and running fast in an emergency.


• Full telephone support and out of hours servicing.


Hague Dental Supplies Ltd Trident Business Centre, 89 Bickersteth Road,


Tooting Broadway, London SW17 9SH


0800 298 5003 www.haguedental.com


EWSPAPERS and other media are traditionally short of stories during August,


until the political season resumes with the party conferences in September. The so-called “silly season” is the time when the “man bites dog” story or this year’s offering, the dog with no front feet that had learned to walk on its hind legs, come to the fore. Footballers and other celebrities can be relied on to provide alternative entertainment for readers, but usually this is not a time for hard news stories and serious analysis. This year, however, a rather


more gloomy note has been struck, which has not been helped by the bad weather, threats of strikes and an impending draconian spending review.


Although NHS spending is exempt


from this process, the promised 45 per cent reduction in administrative costs and the removal of ring-fenced dental funding next April mean that future money for dentistry is by no means assured. Many dentists put their faith in the


coalition government’s agreement to cut red tape and end the tick- box culture of regulation, believing that this would reverse the tide of regulatory interference that threatens to engulf the profession. However, the latest review of “arm’s length bodies” reported on our front page shows that the future of the Care Quality Commission (CQC) and the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) are assured. This is hardly the “bonfire of quangos” promised by the Prime Minister. Primary Care Trusts (PCTs)


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continue to question practices on their recall interval policies, wrongly citing NICE guidance as leading to longer intervals, when it says nothing of the sort. The CQC ploughs remorselessly on towards its target of registering all practices, NHS, private and mixed by April next year. The new IHAS Register of Injectable Cosmetic Providers received the approval of Health Minister Simon Burns last month. Earl Howe has also confirmed the implementation of HTM 01-05. Many dentists will be disappointed


4 T5010-Hague-DP June Ad-310x54mm.indd 1 26/3/09 11:32:36


at the Government’s unwillingness or inability to lift the regulatory burden on them.


A seamless approach to commissioning? When the White Paper was published in July, commissioning for NHS dentistry in the future seemed relatively simple. PCTs would go and dentists’ contracts would be held by the NHS Commissioning Board. Goodbye local commissioning


and interference by PCTs. Hello a national contract which dentists could understand and work within, which had also been piloted. But doubts about such a simple


approach are beginning to emerge. In a recent consultation paper, Commissioning for Patients, the NHS Commissioning Board is given the job of commissioning primary dental services, but GP consortia will be


Many dentists will be disappointed at the Government’s unwillingness or inability to lift the regulatory burden on them.


able to “commission services from primary care contractors”. The paper says they might wish


to commission optometrists to help manage glaucoma. Might they not also commission specialised dental services such as orthodontics and oral surgery from primary care dentists rather than from hospitals specialists?


Local goverment role Also in the consultation paper is a section on the role for local government in the new world. They will carry out needs assessments and make sure commissioning fulfils these needs. They will support improvements in children’s health and well-being, a focus of the Government’s proposed new dental contract.


Does this mixture of interested parties herald a seamless approach with all of them working together to ensure “a focus on improving quality, achieving good dental health and increasing access to NHS


dentistry”, as promised by the Government? Or will dentistry slip through the cracks and be sidelined and forgotten?


Delving into the past The other big story was publication of statistics for NHS activity during 2009/10 and of dentists’ incomes, as disclosed to the Revenue and Customs during 2008/09. There were three per cent more


courses of treatments carried out last year, which is not surprising given the number of new practices opened and new contracts awarded. Perhaps more surprising was the 12.2 per cent increase in Band 3 courses, with a consequent greater increase in units of dental activity. Put simply, more laboratory work is being done, but what sort of lab work? Is it an extraction and one tooth denture as an alternative to root canal therapy? Or the gold inlay supplied rather than an amalgam? We will not be told until the clinical report comes out in December. What we do know is that 48.2 per


cent of the units of dental activity delivered to non-paying adults are from Band3 treatments – the equivalent figure for charge paying patients is 27 per cent. On income the figures throw up some interesting facts. Practice owners have net income nearly double that of associates. It has to be remembered that although the figures exclude those in totally private practice, they do not exclude the private earnings of those in mixed NHS/private practice. Practice owners of course


need return on capital and to be recompensed for the risks they take and responsibilities they have. But many will ask whether this differential is fair. The yardstick for judging the


income of people nowadays appears to be if they earn more or less than the Prime Minister. According to my back-of-an-envelope calculations, about 30 per cent of practice owners, but under five per cent of associates earn more than David Cameron. But I could be wrong.


www.dental-practice.org


READER ENQUIRY DP 103


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