Dental Tribune United Kingdom Edition

PUBLISHED IN LONDON Don’t miss out - call now to start saving £££’s on 01634 878787 or visit www.kentexpress.co.uk today quoting KEDT1012 Terms and conditions: Offer cannot be used in conjunction with any other offer, discount scheme, gift promotion or price match. Qualifying order must be placed in one transaction.All prices exclude VAT. E & O E. Product subject to change without prior notice. To qualify, the quote code must be quoted at time of order. For online orders place quote code in comments box. Corrections cannot be made once the order has been placed. This offer is intended for the end user and therefore is not available to resellers.Offer valid 01/10/12 - 31/10/12. Quote Code KEDT1012 To qualify for offer, code must be quoted at time of order. For online orders place quote code in comments box. Corrections are unable to be made after the order has been received. uJxxx-10-12KE Dental Tribune AD.indd 1 20/09/2012 11:11 New pilot wave needs 25 practices Second wave of piloting to begin in April 2013; practices being called for application process October 22 - 28, 2012 VOL. 6 NO. 24 Patient receives £15k Christina Knights, of Grimsby, has been awarded more than £15,000 in compensation after complications during dental work has left her with per- manent facial numbness. As reported in the Grimsby Tel- egraph, Christina was told that it was a straightforward procedure and that the risk of sustaining permanent nerve damage was one in thousands. However, once surgery was complete, she soon realised something was not right when there was no feeling in her chin or lower lip. Evidence showed that the hospital had failed to review carefully an X-ray which demonstrated the root of the tooth ran very close to the nerve, increasing the risk of nerve damage. Dentist fined after Scientology demand According to reports in a US newspaper, an Oregon dentist has been ordered to pay nearly $348,000 after threatening to fire a dental nurse for refusing to attend a Scientology-related training session. Dr Andrew Engel ordered Susan Muhle- man to attend a three-day Sci- entology training session for life skills. After refusing to go because of her Christian faith, Engel threatened to fire Muh- leman. In November 2009 she filed a complaint with the Bu- reau of Labour and Industries’ civil rights division. She was awarded with nearly $348,000 in compensation for emotional duress and the cost of finding new employment. $9.8m for botched extraction A US jury has awarded a re- cord-breaking verdict of $9.8m to a 49-year-old man for the in- juries he sustained as a result of a botched wisdom tooth ex- traction. After having gone to dentist Dr William Moody with toothache, he was sent home after three attempts at remov- ing the wisdom tooth. He then had to be taken to the local A&E. Eventually he found his way to the care of oral surgeon, Dr Michael Miller. After spend- ing four days at the hospital, Dr Miller surgically extracted the remaining roots. According to reports, Dr Miller had never actually seen or examined the patient prior to the surgery. The jury found both Dr Moody and Dr Miller were equally li- able for the injuries and that they had failed to obtain an informed consent. The patient has been unable to return to work as a hydro-geologist, and remains totally disabled as a result of his constant pain. www.dental-tribune.co.uk New bleaching laws BDBS explains why new laws are good for dentistry My Olympic story Amit Patel recalls his volunteer experience Flapless surgery Dr Nedjat presents a case News in Brief Feature ClinicalNews FeatureNews Young Endo Award Achievements celebrated at anniversary event page 2 page 8 pages 12-13 pages 23-26 T he Department of Health (DH) has announced that 25 more practices will be joining the piloting of new con- tractual arrangements in April 2013, adding to the 70 practices that are already participating in the scheme. As part of the pilot scheme, practices are trialling new ways of working. Patients at some of the pilot sites are given a thor- ough check-up and then a traffic light rating of red, amber or green depending on how healthy their mouth is. Dentists can then rec- ommend a long term care plan for patients, and offer advice for bet- ter self-care. The extra sites will help fine tune different parts of the new contract that will see dentists paid for the number of patients they care for, and the health results they produce, rather than the number of courses of treatment they perform. This is all part of the Govern- ment’s plan to modernise den- tistry, with the aim of the pilot scheme being to provide the evi- dence needed to develop the new dental contract. Dr Barry Cockroft, Chief Dental Officer for England said: “I am delighted the pilot scheme has been received so positively by dentists and a lot of excellent work has been carried out so far. “We have worked closely with the sites and know some of the elements being tested need fine tuning. Making sure the new dental contract is fully tested and fit for the future is a vital part of our plans to modernise the NHS and the pilots have a key role to play. “So far the pilot’s been a suc- cess because we’ve actually learnt a lot. What we’re doing is re- sponding to that learning – we’ve agreed with the Ministers that the pilot process will continue beyond April 2013. We will also be seek- ing a further tranche of pilots in- cluding salaried services destined to extend the pilot legacy pro- gramme.” The British Dental Association (BDA) commented on the expan- sion of the pilots, calling it a ‘posi- tive step forward’. Dr John Milne, Chair of the BDA’s General Dental Practice Committee, said: “The pilots require time, engagement with the profession and proper evaluation if they are to create a new contract that works for pa- tients and practitioners. The BDA will continue to assert the impor- tance of all three things. “Feedback obtained from par- ticipating practices by BDA re- searchearlierthisyearwaslargely positive. Where problems have been identified with the pilots, DH does appear to have listened to the profession and made sensible ad- justments. “The BDA will continue its in- dependent evaluation of the pilots; press for further changes where they are needed and, when the time comes, insist that the final proposed new contract is properly negotiated with the profession.” The application deadline for the Stage two dental contract pi- lots is 8 November, 2012. Inter- ested parties should go to http:// dentalpilots.pcc.nhs.uk/ for more information about criteria and the application process. DT