§ Ms WalleyTo ask the Secretary of State for Health what incentives his Department offers to keep dentists in NHS practices. [53710]
§ Ms BlearsOver the last 18 months we have spent £100 million on modernising national health service dentistry. £10 million of this was for the dental care development fund and the dentistry action plan fund to support local plans to improve access. This money enables health authorities to assist dentists seeking to set up new practices and to expand and modernise existing ones. Furthermore, the £35 million modernisation fund provided grants for dentists to improve facilities.
Additionally, the commitment payment scheme, introduced from April 1999, provides incentive payments to dentists, depending on how much NHS work they undertake. From April 2002, the scheme was extended to include dentists who have five years or more service in the NHS. Officials continue to work with the profession to see how the scheme might be strengthened in the future. The Department is also undertaking work with the profession and other stakeholders through the modernising project "Options for Change", to test out new methods of providing NHS dentistry.
§ Ms WalleyTo ask the Secretary of State for Health what estimates he has made of the leaving rate of dentists from NHS to private practices in the last three years. [53709]
§ Ms BlearsVery few dentists leave the general dental service (GDS) totally to practice privately. However, dentists in the GDS can vary their level of commitment to the GDS, for example by increasing the amount of their private work.
The number of dentists leaving the GDS is shown in the table for the years 1998–99 to 2000–01 for England together with the percentages of the number of dentists at the beginning of the year.
The number of leavers covers all reasons for leaving the GDS including retirement from dental work and dentists taking career breaks. These figures are inflated by the transfer of some dentists from the GDS to some personal dental service pilots.
866W
General dental ser1vice (GDS): number of dentists who left the GDS and percentage of principal and total dentists from 1998–99 to 2000–01 1998–99 1999–2000 2000–01 Number of leavers Principals 761 780 875 Assistants 106 157 181 Vocational dental practitioners 105 95 136 All dentists 972 1,032 1,192 Leavers as percentage of dentist number at beginning of year (per cent.) Principals 5 5 5 All dentists 6 6 7