Nigel Jones considers if a change in focus would lead to more hope for the future of NHS dentistry.
What is the purpose of NHS dentistry? I’ve probably missed it but I don’t recall that being called out explicitly in the various select committees, public account committees (PACs), dental recovery plans etc, with which we’ve been inundated in the past year or so.
A quick Google search supplies the answer, courtesy of a Kings Fund publication in 2023, to the question ‘What is NHS dentistry?’ Commissioned by NHS England, the explainer states that ‘NHS dentistry provides treatment that is clinically necessary to keep mouths, teeth and gums healthy and free of pain’. But that’s not really what I was after.
Perhaps the opening line of the Wikipedia entry for NHS dentistry will provide a clue: ‘Dentistry provided by the National Health Service in the United Kingdom is supposed to ensure that dentistry is available to the whole population.’ That’s an interesting use of the word ‘supposed’, and I guess no surprise given the public acknowledgement in the PAC hearing that there is only the budget for roughly half of the population.
For what it’s worth, my own view is that the ‘purpose’ of NHS dentistry should be to reduce oral health inequality. Simple as.
Oral health inequalities
Perhaps it’s an academic point but in business theory, the purpose is the underlying motivation or driving force that shapes a company’s strategy, culture and decisions. How much easier might it be to reshape NHS contractual arrangements and to prioritise the recipients of limited funding if the goal is reducing oral health inequality rather than continue to try to kid the public that there is a way of enabling NHS dentistry to be accessible to all?
And then I stumble across the dental commissioning section of NHS England’s website. The priorities of the national dental commissioning and policy team are listed and the first two are, in order, to reduce oral health inequality and improve oral health in children under the age of five; and flexible commissioning. Access is in third place and even then, the reference is to addressing areas of weakest dental provision which can obviously fit with tackling inequality.
Perhaps there is hope after all.
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