DLA Media Blitz
Campaigning by the DLA has put the plight of Britain's NHS labs firmly on the media agenda.
DLA Chief Executive Richard Daniels was interviewed on the BBC's flagship radio current affairs programme, Today, on Thursday 29th March. He explained how the NHS dental contract has led to a decline in work for UK dental laboratories and discussed the impact this is having on patient treatments.
He said, “Since April 2006, when the new contract came into effect, complex treatments were effectively removed from the NHS. Dentists have been put in a perverse position where the more they prescribe, the less they will earn ... If you look at a patient who needed a tooth replacing on the old ‘fee per item’ system, they would normally have been given a crown. Under the new system they’re being given a one-tooth denture because there is a much greater cost incentive in terms of time and materials.”
As a result, many laboratories have lost so much business that they have no option but to close down.
Richard Daniels warned, “The dental laboratories are just like coalmines. Once they close, they’ll never re-open. We’re losing an awful lot of skills at the moment and to compound that problem, dentists trying to cut costs are now looking to go overseas for their laboratory work.”
It is not only laboratory owners who are concerned about the effects of the NHS contract. He concluded: “Yesterday I was having a conversation with a group of dentists at the British Dental Association – and they told me that prescribing has been set back by 20 years as a direct result of the contract. Patients are not receiving the same complex treatments that they were on the previous system. The whole system is geared towards the dentist being put under extreme financial pressure so that they can’t make the appropriate treatment, and decisions on treatment are being made based on finances rather than clinical need.”
Click here to hear the full interview (requires RealPlayer software).
Five Live
Later in the day, Richard Daniels also discussed the situation on BBC Five Live.
Daily Mail
On Friday 30th March the Daily Mail gave extensive coverage to the issue - you can read their reports here and here.
N.B. If you do not have RealPlayer it can be downloaded here.
