Dental Services (Hansard, 22 March 2004)

§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Lord Warner)

Under general dental services arrangements, dentists receive some 23 per cent of National Health Service gross earnings from payments in respect of the registration of patients. From the introduction of primary dental services under the Health and Social Care (Community Health and Standards) Act 2003, the system of remuneration based on the item of service fees and payments in respect of individual registrations will be replaced with a new base contract. The proposed new contract will help to stabilise and improve access to NHS dental treatment. It will also allow dentists to treat patients on the basis of clinical need, as it will replace the fee for item of service system which dentists tell us feels like a treadmill and which is generally agreed to be the main reason for dentists' dissatisfaction with the NHS. We have guaranteed that dentists working in the GDS will have an automatic right to a contract under the new arrangements and that their gross earnings will be protected over the transition period of three years in return for a similar level of NHS commitment.

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Under the new contract, dentists will have responsibility for any patients under their active treatment, compared with their current responsibility which is to maintain their registered patients in dental fitness and provide out-of-hours cover for them. The range of treatments provided will be similar but it will be a matter for dentists' clinical judgement what care is offered to meet the individual patient's clinical needs.

The details of the new arrangements are subject to ongoing discussion with all stakeholders including representatives of the profession and the NHS.

These proposals represent the most radical reform of NHS dentistry since 1948. The aim is to give a better deal for patients, for dentists and for the NHS and should lead to an increase in dentists' NHS commitment.