ADG ‘calls for a public inquiry’ in response to NAO dental recovery report
NewsPosted by: Dental Design 28th November 2024
The Association of Dental Groups (ADG) is calling for an official inquiry into the former Conservative Government’s dental recovery plan announced in February this year. This demand for an inquiry comes in response to the recent publication of the National Audit Office’s (NAO) report on the plan: ‘An Investigation into the NHS dental recovery plan’ which exposes it as not able to deliver on its aims.
The dental recovery plan’s key pledge was that ‘everyone who needs to see a dentist will be able to’. But the NAO report highlights that it is unlikely to be able deliver an additional 1.5 million treatments by March 2025, and that even if this could happen, it would still result in 2.6 million fewer treatments being carried out than before the pandemic.
However, the ADG, the member trade association representing 10,000 clinicians and 1,800 practices, claims that the NAO report is not a thorough enough examination of the current crisis. There is a lack of focus on dentistry workforce planning, in favour of revisions to the NHS dental contract, which shows poor understanding of the intersection between contract reforms and ensuring the dental workforce is sufficiently strong enough to turn the situation around.
The NAO report claims to provide clarity on the current state of NHS dentistry, how the plan was developed and whether it is on track to meet its objectives, however ADG members, who are the nation’s dentistry ‘boots on the ground’ see a fundamental lack of understanding of the full picture.
Neil Carmichael, Executive Chair, ADG said: “The National Audit Office report is disappointing. It shows a clear lack of understanding of the complexities of the issues that are responsible for the crisis in dentistry. The NAO report has focused on contract reform, rather than workforce planning. Unfortunately, this finds both the Conservative’s dental recovery plan AND the report on it ‘pie in the sky’. If you don’t have the workforce to deliver dental treatments, any plan, is never going to work.
“The ADG believes an official public inquiry is the only way forward. The Public Accounts Committee need to have a look at the plan and also why the NAO report lacked meaningful consultation that would have shown how a recruitment and retention focus for the full spectrum of the dental workforce is the solution. The dental workforce includes other Dental Care Professionals (DCPs) such as dental nurses and dental therapists who are critical to providing patient care. Remember DCPs are now trained to carry out 70 percent of the treatments that dentists can.
“We talk to large and small dental practices up and down the country every day, and our insights from our members should be part of what informs this official inquiry. It is the only way we will get the full picture and a robust recovery plan. The ADG is here to support the new Government to deliver on dentistry reform.”
