Call for more therapists, not dentists

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This is your page to write to and open up topics for debate, reply to each other and offer advice. One letter we have for this issue calls for more therapists to be trained instead of more dentists. What are your thoughts and contributions? Letters can be about your profession only or about working in dentistry in general.

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Star Letter

Dr Marshall calls for more therapists and hygienists, not dentists

I read with dismay the recent announcements by Minister for Health Dr John Reid concerning the plans to resuscitate NHS Dental Care. The present Government are hell bent on a package that will do nothing for the basic ailments that bedevil the attempts to deliver decent oral healthcare to the population.

• 1 Patients – by stealth and ever increasing charges over the years – fund the greater part of treatment at point of use. This amounts to a massive injection of capital and is an outrageous imposition in a National Health Service purported to deliver the health needs of the population without charge when required. Why is it that the mouth and oral healthcare are some totally different deal? Imagine what would happen if in a comparable situation some little old lady was asked to pay £370.00 or so towards a necessary hip replacement procedure! Every tabloid and media outlet would be screaming in a millisecond. Whilst no one protests this will of course continue despite it being so hugely illogical.

• 2 Dr Reid tells us that “The equivalent (sic) of 1,000 dentists will be recruited by October 2005” Why? It seems that many from outside the UK will be fast tracked in the desperation to fill manpower needs whilst standards slide even further. What is the justification for this influx of dental professionals?

• 3 Dr Reid delivers a pledge to fund 170 extra undergraduate training places from October 2005. Why? What we really need are dental therapists and hygienists. Dentists are largely over trained to deal with the large amounts of the relatively simple treatment procedures that are needed to stabilise oral health in the population. Advanced restorative procedures will be in the minority. Dental therapists can be trained in 27 months to do much of the restorative dentistry needed and hygienists in even less time to deal with the important basic periodontics.

What then as an alternative to the above, do the people of the UK deserve?

• 1 Remove NHS charges, put the mouth back in the body and properly re-integrate dental care into the rest of the NHS.

• 2 Salaries for all NHS dentists and a fair rent from the DoH to practice principals for existing and already capitalised practice premises.

• 3 Practice teams (the ‘professions complimentary to dentistry’) to have direct salaried contracts with the DoH. Registration, accredited training, and continuing professional development programmes to be mandatory to enable this.

• 4 Train more therapists and hygienists (especially therapists) not dentists.

• 5 Revise the availabilty of ‘luxury items’ within NHS regulations.

John Reid said “Dental services will be properly integrated with the rest of the NHS providing better access to services and an improved patient experience.” How, is this to happen under such a programme?

Yours faithfully

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