• The British Dental Association (BDA) has lent its support to the proposed delay on the regulation of general medical practice by the Care Quality Commission (CQC), and renewed its argument that the registration of dentistry should be reconsidered too. The arguments are made in the BDA's response to the Department of Health's consultation on the registration of primary care medical services providers with the CQC. The response highlights the severe policy and administrative difficulties experienced by the CQC.

  • The BDA warns that dental public health expertise and budgets must be safeguarded if the Government's proposals for the reform of commissioning and dental services are to succeed. On 26 July the BDA published Dental public health futures which identifies a number of crucial areas in which a failure to protect dental public health in the transition to new NHS structures and systems could create serious problems. The document, which supports the strengthening of public health outlined in the White Paper Healthy lives, healthy people, is available at: http://www.bda.org/dentists/policy-campaigns/public-health-science/public-health/DPHFutures.aspx