The New NHS

Well I've got the details of my final appeal back and I'm sorry to say that its been rejected... It seems that the Primary Care Trust are able to ask us to complete double the amount of dental work for the same income. I suppose that there was a moment of epiphany now that I realise that rather than being about caring for the patient the health service (at least in dentistry) is about re-electing a Labour government. As I see it, it's a win win contract for them. If we are able to meet our increased targets then they can say 'look how much more dentistry is being done on the NHS' and if we refuse and abandon the NHS then the plan is to have larger centers staffed with lower paid foreign dentists and they can say 'look at the new Practices we've opened'.

No word though for the patient that has to travel farther to see a dentist. No word for the patient that sees a different dentist each time they go to one of these larger poly clinics. No incentive for their dentist to properly sort out the dental problems that they have - just quick and cheap treatment to get them out of the surgery. It seems to me that NHS dentistry will become a patients quickest route to ill fitting dentures. Still the politicians and bureaucrats aren't bothered. They can afford to go Private....

Smile...

So Smile week has come and gone again. This year David bravely donned a toothbrush outfit and visited local schools with Katrina and Kelly dressed as tooth fairies. The staff were particularly impressed by the enthusiasm of the teachers at the schools and the involvement and participation of the children. This year the message was good foods/bad foods and the importance of brushing for young children. Generally in the last 15 years or so there has been a big improvement in the condition of children’s teeth, but sadly there were still children in the schools with poor teeth and no dentist. Considering that the important lessons are learnt at an early age, this doesn’t bode well for the dental health of a small but persistent minority…

Complaints, complaints, complaints..

Interesting times. We’ve just submitted our final appeal about our new contract to the NHS Litigation Authority. Cornwall Primary Care Trust submitted pages of information about how much money they need to collect off patients to try to justify their position. My response was two lines. Firstly I didn’t think that a reasonable person would find that more than doubling our targets overnight for the same income was fair and secondly the PCT are charged with discussing and agreeing the new contract. Neither of which they have done. Hopefully the complaint will go my way.. Watch this space.

We had a lady in at the desk this week complaining very loudly about her estimate for £2,000 worth of dental treatment. She was 98 and was clearly distressed at the amount of work suggested. When the girls eventually calmed her down and got a chance to look at the estimate it transpired that her estimate was from a different local Practice. This is so sad on all sorts of levels…