§ Mrs. Gillan:To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many (a) private and (b) NHS dental practices there were in (i) Chesham and Amersham and (ii) Buckinghamshire in each year since 1 January 1996. [130598]
§ Ms Rosie Winterton:No information is available on the number of wholly private dental practices. The Office of Fair Trading report, 'The private dentistry market in the UK', states that about 210 practices in the United Kingdom are totally private.
The table gives the available information for the number of general dental service (GDS) practices and dentists there were in the old Buckinghamshire Health Authority (HA) area for the years 1996 to 2002 and in the relevant primary care trusts (PCTs) in 2002 and 2003. PCTs took over responsibility from HAs in October 2003.
These figures exclude dentists working in other national health service dental services, ie., community and personal dental services, hospital dental services and also salaried general dental practitioners and dentists doing no NHS work.
63W
Number of dental practice Buckinghamshire HA
Chiltern and South Buckinghamshire
PCT
Milton Keynes PCT
Vale of Aylesbury PCT
Wycombe PCT
At 31 August 1996 118 — — — — 1997 118 — — — — 1998 122 — — — — 1999 121 — — — — 2000 121 — — — — 2001 125 — — — — 2002 125 — — — — At 30 October 2002 — 38 35 29 29 At 31 August 2003 — 38 36 30 29 Source: Dental Practice Board
§ Mrs. Gillan:To ask the Secretary of State for Health what plans he has to reduce waiting lists in (a) Chesham and Amersham and (b) Buckinghamshire. [130603]
§ Ms Rosie Winterton:The national health service is working to reduce waiting times so that, by the end of March 2004, the maximum waiting time for inpatient treatment will be cut to nine months and the maximum waiting time for an outpatient appointment will be cut to 17 weeks.
Buckinghamshire Hospitals NHS Trust has recently initiated a series of agreed actions to reduce waiting times, including telephone validation of waiting lists, private patient initiatives and active re-organisation of waiting lists.
Future initiatives to further reduce waiting times include schemes to:
Increase the number of patients who have their operative procedure carried out as a daycase.Explore the role of specialist nurses and allied health professionals as alternatives to traditional consultant-led outpatients appointments.Introduce measures to improve health and avoid complications, for example, investment in wound care management.