election and his work looking at services for the older patient, to name but a few. She said: “I think Andrew’s career and
successes speak for themselves. He came across as a quiet and unassuming man but he worked tirelessly in pursuit of the issues and the challenges of the job. “I think he had a very reflective style
and it was very successful and effective. It’s no surprise that people still talk affectionately about him.” Pat has identified that her first priority in
the role is to renew contacts that Andrew had built up over his career in dentistry and latterly in the BDA. She said: “It is my job to get out and create my own oppor- tunity to understand the industry better, while at the same time raising the profile of the BDA as much as I can by talking to people, going to LDC meetings, confer- ences and trying to engage with dentists in whatever forum they are in.” As well as the new salaried services
contract, one of the main challenges facing Pat are the problems with duplicate registrations affecting more than 7,000 NHS list numbers and the attempted clawback of more than £3.5 million in funds by PSD. She said: “Dentists are quite rightly
very unhappy and we have made a legal challenge under the terms of the regula- tions. If it goes ahead, then dentists will have to trawl back over all their records to validate it all and say which registrations are correct or not. “I think it is a big administrative night-
mare for PSD, and to some extent we are sympathetic to that, but on the other side of the coin it is a big nightmare for our members.” Despite all this, Pat remains very
positive for the future of dentistry, both NHS and private, in Scotland. She said: “I think we are quite fortunate in Scot- land because the Scottish Government is deeply committed to NHS dentistry. I don’t get any sense that there is any question over that. “It has invested significant amounts
of money promoting access and access is now very good. People don’t have the same sort of difficulties that they had five years ago getting registered.” She continued: “For me it is all about
the members. My job is to make sure that we promote dentistry and the needs and aspirations of dentists in Scotland. “We need to make sure that we do our
very best to make sure that the lives of dentists are manageable and that the resources are there for them to do the best for their patients.”
Scottish Dental magazine 25
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