East: NHS dental contracts

Deborah McGurran Editor, Politics Show East

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The April 2006 deadline for the start of new dentists contracts is looming and it is feared many of our practitioners will not sign them and leave the NHS.

We have discovered that with the deadline only a month away, 57% of our primary care trusts have no one signed up yet.

Of the quarter who have received a response from their dentists, it looks like one in 17 are quitting the NHS.

It is the biggest overhaul of the service for 50 years.

The changes are aimed at increasing the number of Health Service patients, but look likely to have the opposite effect.

The NHS budget for dentistry is due to grow to £1.6bn and PCTs will now be responsible for commissioning dental services.

The new system for a base contract has been developed jointly by the British Dental Association and Department of Health.

The real change is going to be in the funding and organisation of the service.

At the moment dentists are paid for each treatment they carry out. They receive 80% of the cost from the patient, and claim the rest from the NHS.

But the government believes this "piecework" encourages unnecessary treatment.

NHS chiefs want dentists to carry out more preventative work and be paid a flat rate salary.

Charges for patients would also change.

Rather than paying for any one of 400 different treatments, they would face only three charges - the lowest for a check-up, the second for any number of fillings and the highest for more complex work.

Dentists claim this could have a detrimental effect on health with patients waiting until they need multiple treatments to get value for money.

But Health Minister Rosie Winterton said: 'The early signs are that the vast majority of dentists will sign.

"The contracts offer average earnings of £80,000 for a committed NHS dentist, plus practice expenses which can be around £80,000 - £90,000.

"All this for at least 5% less work.

"This is a good and fair offer."

Some disgruntled NHS dental patients are being lured by firms offering cut-price treatment abroad - so called dental tourism.

Cut-price treatment is offered, combined with a holiday break.

Sue Smithies opted for treatment in Eastern Europe

Prices are so much lower in Eastern Europe that it is economical for people like Sue Smithies from Essex to fly out, undergo surgery, take in a sight seeing tour and return to the UK .

We accompany Sue to Budapest to see for ourselves.

Sue said: "The only thing we had to pay for was the flight and overnight accommodation. The consultation, x-ray and CT scan was all free."

Dr Bela Batorf from the British Hungarian Medical Association said:" Our prices are a third or less than English prices.

"And in a bigger treatment they can save a lot of money. The price of a car."

People are finding it increasingly difficult to make an appointment with an NHS dentist and often have to sign up with expensive private practices.

More NHS dentists are now expected to quit and go private over the new contracts being imposed by the Department of Health from April 2006.

The Politics Show

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Politics Show, Sunday 05 March 2006 at Noon.

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