Blair’s reforms were a blow for dentistry
I NOTICE that according to the article written by Angharad Neagle in the Western Mail (“Performance of NHS one of top priorities for the electorate”, April 22), the performance of the NHS is a priority for voters and I’m sure she is correct. Regarding the breakdown of NHS dentistry, I felt it may be interesting to illustrate what has happened using my personal experience in the dental profession.
In 1964 I was a member of a small group of students who were the first intake into the first dental school in Wales. The idea was to produce dental surgeons in Wales and try to increase the size of the profession in Wales because the dental health of the nation was poor and severely short of dentists.
The plan worked well. We were very well educated and trained and a large number of us remained in Wales. This continued as larger groups of students qualified. We were all mainly in NHS contracts and, without doubt, improved the dental health of the population and were happy to do so. At this time we were paid for the work that we did but we all also added preventative dentistry to our treatment and advised on oral hygiene and diet.
All was well until Blair’s government imposed a new dental contract in 2006 despite the protests by dentists and the British Dental Association. Suddenly any patient who had neglected their dental health and had high needs such as many fillings, extractions and gum treatment had to be treated at the same payment scale as a regular attender who needed only one filling.
It should be remembered that it was not brought in by a Conservative government. Nevertheless, they have been in power long enough to have corrected the situation in England and likewise, the Senedd, with devolved responsibility for health, has been in power for even longer.
Many dentists realised that they could not care for patients with high needs and so stuck with their regular attenders and / or switched to private dentistry.
In my opinion the clock was turned back on dental health by decades. It was those with high needs that we saw and treated and they would bring their children and the attitude of the family would change and gradually the community.
As I prepare to mark 60 years of dental education in Wales, I do so with an immense feeling of sadness at the state of NHS dental care and astonishment that it has taken so many years for the contract to be finally recognised as a disaster.
Liz Eales Gowerton, Swansea