NLGN proposal for dentist NHS quotas adopted by the Conservatives

May 19, 2009


The New Local Government Network has welcomed the announcement by the Conservative Shadow Health Secretary, Andrew Lansley, to adopt the thinktank’s proposal that all dentists trained by the NHS should have to treat a quota of NHS patients for a set period of time.

The Conservatives announced today that all dentists trained under the NHS will have to spend five years treating NHS patients once they qualify. This echoes a call made by the NLGN earlier this year that dentists who benefit from NHS training should subsequently be required to spend up to half of their subsequent working time tending to NHS patients. Currently dentists trained under the NHS only have to treat NHS patients for the first twelve months of their working career, despite the fact that on average it costs the NHS £175,000 to train a dentist.

Figures show that almost a fifth of NHS patients have gone without treatment because of cost. According to the Government’s own estimate, more than 2 million people who wish to access NHS dental care are unable to do so.

The proposal was made in a report from NLGN, People Power: How can we personalise public services?, which argued that the Government’s ambition to introduce choice in public services could be compromised by a lack of basic provision in some public services, such as dentistry. It warns that the public should be offered good, basic services as a minimum otherwise they will have no faith in the idea of more advanced, personalised services.

Commenting on today’s announcement from the Conservatives, NLGN Director Chris Leslie said:

“With millions of dental patients continuing to struggle to find NHS practices with capacity to take them, we believe that these measures will allow more people to access convenient and fairly-priced dental services. The proposal for dentists trained courtesy of the taxpayer to give a fairer proportion of their time back to the NHS will ensure that they can balance their work between public and private care and not have to choose between one or the other. The Department of Health is currently consulting on possible reforms to dentistry and I hope that they will look seriously at these proposals.”


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