Dental Tribune United Kingdom Edition

I n an unsurprising move, Health Secretary Andrew Lansley has been relegated to Leader of the Commons in today’s Cabinet reshuffle. Lans- ley, who was the thinker be- hind the contentious reforms to the NHS has been replaced by former Culture Secretary Jer- emy Hunt, who was described as a “strong reformer” by the Prime Minister. Speaking outside No 10, Mr Hunt said he was “incred- ibly honoured” to take over as Health Secretary. “It is a huge task and the biggest privilege of my life,” he told the BBC. Hunt, a contemporary of Cameron’s and Boris Johnson’s at Oxford Uni- versity, has had a difficult year. Following a near-scandal over his management of Rupert Mur- doch’s bid for control of BskyB, it was revealed that his aide was in close contact with the news corporation. Indeed, he was one of the few people allowed to be called a ‘liar’ in parliament by the Speaker. However, it seems Hunt is back in favour with the Prime Minister after Lansley was dropped by Cameron, suppos- edly over his failure to commu- nicate his NHS reforms. A year after his ‘sack me or back me’ ultimatum to the Prime Minis- ter, where he warned Cameron he would rather quit the Cabi- net than abandon the controver- sial health reforms, Lansley has been radically demoted. In March this year, Lans- ley had said about the reforms “Some people say we should not have embarked on this programme of NHS reform. To those people who doubt what we are doing I would say, because of the pressures we are facing, we cannot afford not to reform the NHS. To take the approach advocated by Labour of simply sitting on our hands would be storing up a crisis for the fu- ture. Not reforming the NHS would have been a much easier decision for me as secretary of state to have taken. We could have just protected the NHS from cuts, put in an extra £12.5bn and left it there. But sooner or later the cracks would have started to show. New treatments would have been held back. Queues would have grown. Patients would have been let down,” he adds. However, the Shadow Health Secretary Andy Burnham had countered this, arguing, “The health secretary has demon- strated once again why we are in this problem; his dis- missive attitude and inability to listen. His siege mentality is preventing him from seeing the bigger picture.” And it seems that it is this ‘siege mentality’ that has caused Lansley to lose his job as Health Secretary, despite having an enduring relationship with the Prime Minister, when he was Cameron’s boss when the he took his first political job in the Conservative research depart- ment. DT Lansley out in radical cabinet reshuffle T here has been report pub- lished as a response by the government to the recent study by the Office of Fair Trad- ing’s market study of the private and NHS dental markets in May 2012. The study was prompted by complaints to Consumer Direct and the OFT’s concerns patients’ ability to directly access dental care professionals. The purpose of this study was to examine whether the UK dentistry market is working well for patients. The issues were considered within the context of both NHS and private dentistry. The OFT gave five recommen- dations to address its concerns: • Provision of clear, accurate and timely information for patients • Direct patient access to dental care professionals • Reform of the NHS dental con- tract in England • Simplification of the complaints process • Development of a code of prac- tice for sale of private dental plans The government response began by stating they welcomed the recent report, and were par- ticularly pleased that ‘this market study shows that dental patients have a high level of satisfaction with the services provided by their dentist’. The government agreed with the OFT report with regards to patient care, claiming that there needs to be ‘Provision of clear, accurate and timely infor- mation for patients’, particularly with regards to prices and dental treatments. The report goes on to share the concerns of the OFT that some dentists have been de- nying their patients treatment on the NHS by not providing enough information. The government warned such dentists that not per- missible and any dentist ‘doing so deliberately is in breach of their NHS contract.’ As a result of the report the Department of Health are attempting to improve their transparency, particularly on their website, including adding ‘new pages which clearly explain NHS dental charges and exemptions, and inform patients how to get help with NHS dental costs.’ The government agreed that patients should be able to see the ‘right dental professional when they need to’, although they admit that ‘this needs to be in a managed and clinically appropriate envi- ronment’. The government went on to agree with the OFT’s beliefs that patients’ capacities to make a complaint about their treatment should be as simple as possible. With this in mind the government are changing their patient leaflet by updating any information about the complaints procedure and ‘the opportunity to give feedback on practices on NHS Choices.’ The government also want to consider whether there can be any synergy created between the current pri- vate and NHS complaints systems. The OFT recommended that the government developed a new system for the sale of private den- tal plans. As a result of the report, the government are looking into setting up a code of practise to avoid the miss- selling, or pressur- ised sale of a private dental plan; in particular the response has highlighted that there should be clear penalties for dentists who do mislead patients. The government surmises that although there is some action needed to be taken, particularly with regards to direct access. The government will look into design- ing new dental contracts, and in- creasing transparency for dental patients, however, on the whole, the government concluded that ‘the vast majority of patients are happy with their dental treatment and that the majority of dentists behave ethically.’ DT Government response to OFT T hree employees of the British Dental Health Foundation are planning on embarking on a 10km Aware- ness Walk for a mouth cancer charity. David Arnold, 29, David Westgarth, 27 from Rugby and Doychin Satutov, 22, who lives in Coventry are taking part in the walk on 22nd September in Hyde Park in London to raise hun- dreds of pounds for research into mouth cancer. David Arnold, Senior PR and Press Officer at the Foundation is hoping that the walk will get more people talking about the disease and also help to raise awareness about the risks and different symptoms of mouth cancer. David said: “Events such as the Mouth Cancer Aware- ness Walk, along with annual campaigns such as November’s Mouth Cancer Action Month, re- ally do help to take this hidden problem and place it in the spot- light. “By taking positive action in similar fashion to recent breast and testicular cancer campaigns, we can put mouth cancer firmly in the news agenda. In highlight- ing key risk factors and symp- toms, along with information about self-examination and oral screenings we can potentially save thousands of lives. “The five-year survival rate of mouth cancer patients is just 50 per cent. But early diagno- sis gives patients a 90 per cent chance of survival.” If you would like to sponsor any members of the British Den- tal Health Foundation on their Mouth Cancer 10km Awareness Walk, please contact them by tel- ephone on 01788 539 792 or by email at pr@dentalhealth.org. DT Foundation Trio Give Miles of Smiles for Mouth Cancer Walk L-R: David Westgarth, David Arnold and Doychin Satutov I n a new survey carried out by the Blackburn with Dar- wen Local Involvement Net- work, it has been revealed that only 56 per cent of respondents in Darwen are registered with a dentist. This shocking statistic is teamed with the fact that on av- erage, children in this area have more than two rotten teeth by the age of five. A new Stop the Rot campaign has since been set up to hinder this worrying trend. The Pri- mary Care Trust for the region is encouraging people to go to the dentist by working hard to ensure that there are no waiting lists for dental patients wanting to go to an NHS dentist- a new health and wellbeing centre in the area has created a further 2,500 places. However, Darwen councillor Roy Davis, who is also the vice- chairman of the health scrutiny committee said it is the high prices of dental treatment, and the lack of information avail- able about NHS treatments that is scaring people away. He said: “We have NHS dentists available, but in a lot of cases the charges are ridiculous. It’s £17.50 for a check-up, £48 for a filling and £206 for root canal treatment, so it’s no wonder that people are going up and down with no teeth. It’s a choice be- tween putting food on the table or going to the dentists. “It has become endemic over the past 10 years or so, that people don’t want to go, even though sometimes these spe- cialists can spot something that might save your life. “We need to get adver- tisements out showing the places that are available at sur- geries.” DT Just over half of people registered with dentist as revealed in new survey September 10-16, 20122 News United Kingdom Edition