Dental Tribune United Kingdom Edition

10 Opinion United Kingdom Edition February 25- March 3, 2013 page 9DTß 55 minutes. The cycle time of a typical vacuum autoclave. 23 minutes. The standard cycle time of the new Optima autoclave. Sterilizing? What would you choose? Reduce all your cycle times with Prestige Medical’s decontamination solutions. Reduce all your cycle times with Optima: the fastest vacuum autoclave on the market. That’s a big increase in the number of instruments you can sterilize and a big reduction in cycle times. Over a working week, month and year that adds up to a huge time saving and increase in productivity. Tel. 01254 844 103 E: sales@prestigemedical.co.uk www.prestigemedical.co.uk/uk/dentistry The Dental Directory and Prestige Medical - A partnership designed to bring you the highest quality products, services and support – at prices you won’t find anywhere else! For DeconTeamination call Prestige Medical today and ask for more details. Faster Cycles: Optima Autoclave UltraClean 3 Optimax Optima fact, this is exactly what I think we should do - so let’s pilot the new dental contract and not a range of independent parts which may work completely differently when put together. If a decision has already been made to go for a blend of part capitation and part payment or alternative, let’s focus on testing this blend extensively and figure out where to go from there. Let us not forget that there were rumblings of having ‘evidence’ to support the 2006 contract, however on critical review by the HSC this position was not supported. One of the most important things we need to decide upon before we can trial any form of change is the basis of what we are changing to. This is something we can only really do effectively if the govern- ment and the profession have a frank and open discussion about what is going to be pro- vided in the new dental con- tract system. Unfortunately, dentistry is expensive, has always been expensive and probably al- ways will be expensive, but in light of this expense if the gov- ernment funds a ‘core’ system then, no matter how we polish it, a core system is what we will get. In my opinion what we re- ally need to be discussing is how, in the face of a very lim- ited budget, we can get den- tists (myself included) to do more dentistry for less money in a way that is perceived to be fairer by all and incentiv- ises the profession to want to do what is in patients’ best in- terests. Frankly it’s not in any- one’s interest if dentists get paid ridiculously high sums of money for carrying out a small filling and then a compara- tively low sum of money for root treating a multi-rooted tooth. The skew in remunera- tion between ‘reward’ and ‘ef- fort’ has effectively degraded the profession leading many to consider NHS dentistry as a core service in all but name. In 2008 the Health Select Committee (HSC) reported on the state of the dental sec- tor following the introduction of UDAs in the 2006 contract. In its conclusion the HSC re- port stated: ‘The Department acknowledged that it had learned valuable lessons from the PDS pilots it had conduct- ed from 1998 onwards, but the new remuneration system based on UDAs was not tested through a pilot. It is extraordi- nary that the Department did not pilot or test the new pay- ment system before it was in- troduced in 2006.’ Whatever alternative is eventually introduced quite clearly it is going to be as new to the NHS as UDAs were back in 2006. In light of the furore over the 2006 contract and the lessons supposedly learned, I find it amazing that the DoH has not confirmed whether or not it is planning to carry out a full pilot of the final version of the new contract before it decides to roll it out to the profession. Until it does, I ask the simple question: are these current ‘pilots’ practical or pointless? DT About the author Neel Kothari qualified as a den- tist from Bristol University Dental School in 2005, and currently works in Sawston, Cam- bridge as a princi- pal dentist at High Street Dental Prac- tice. He has completed a year-long postgraduate certificate in implantol- ogy and is currently undertaking the Diploma in Implantology at UCL’s Eastman Dental Institute. ‘One of the most im- portant things we need to decide upon before we can trial any form of change is the basis of what we are changing to’