NHS patients across the country are set to benefit from better access to dental care under new changes announced by NHS England today.
For the first time in 16 years, new reforms to the dental contract mean that dentists will be paid more treating more complex cases.
Dental therapists will also now be able to accept patients for NHS treatments, providing sealants, fillings, and preventative care for adults and children – subsequently freeing up dentists’ time for more exigent and complex cases.
Chief Dental Officer for England, Sara Hurley, said: “The NHS is determined to overhaul dental provision, with a focus on increasing access to necessary dental care and supporting prevention, today’s reforms are the first step on that journey.
“NHS dental staff are working hard to recover services, but the key to delivering this will be reform – these changes announced today will help teams carry out even more treatments and help address the inevitable backlogs that have built up during the pandemic.
“Anyone with concerns about their dental health should contact their local dentist as they usually would or seek advice from NHS 111.”
“Infection prevention and control measures to protect staff and patients were introduced during the pandemic, limiting the number of procedures that NHS dentists could carry out.”
To make services more accessible for the public, dentists must update the NHS website and the directory of services so patients can find the availability of dentists within their community.
Dental practices that perform well will also have the opportunity to increase their activity by a further 10%, allowing them to see as many patients as possible.
These new reforms will ensure that dentists, who are operating at full capacity for the first time in two years following the pandemic, will be able to recover their dental services.
Abhi Pal, President of the College of General Dentistry, said: “While the NHS dental contract in England needs fundamental reform, we welcome these significant improvements. In particular, the removal of unnecessary restrictions on the roles played by members of the wider dental team, the direction of more resource to the treatment of patients with greater needs, and the potential for practices to deliver additional care so that all funding allocated to dentistry is used for its intended purpose.”
It was in the March of last year that the Government asked NHS England to lead on the next stage of dental reforms in order to deliver better health outcomes for patients and provide better support for dentists.
More information and commentary on the new reforms is available here.
