In a statement to the Assembly, the Minister said: “I strongly believe that people who want health service dentistry should be able to get it. That is far from the case in too many parts of Northern Ireland today.“It has become clear to me that the additional £2million funding announced earlier this year, though undoubtedly significant, has not proved sufficient to stop the movement of dentists out of the health service.
“I am therefore pleased to be able to announce a substantial package of additional measures.
“These new measures will allow the health service to begin to address directly the problems of gaps in provision which are a matter of real concern to the public.”
The measures announced by the Minister are:
- An additional injection of a further £2million recurrent, over and above that already announced in this financial year, into Practice Allowances. This is specifically to address the profession’s main concern with the current dental contract – the issue of resourcing overhead costs.
- In recognition of the increasing costs of meeting cross-infection control standards, £1.5million is being made available to help dentists with the costs of necessary new equipment and procedures, thus improving patient safety in the surgery.
- To help ensure an adequate supply of new young dentists into health service dentistry in Northern Ireland, £500,000 is being made available to increase significantly the Vocational Training allowances for trainers willing to take on new graduates.
- And finally, up to £400,000 is being allocated to Boards to address the problem of equity of access to health service dentistry, to enable them to grow the salaried dentists sector to plug gaps in health service provision.
The Minister explained that the additional funding for Practice Allowances would be directed towards those practices committed to providing health service dentistry to the full range of patients, including adults who pay for their treatment.
Mr McGimpsey said: “I very much hope that the significant investments I have outlined will encourage dentists not only to come into and stay in the health service, but to come back to it where they have currently opted for private practice.
“I cannot accept a situation where there remain geographical pockets within Northern Ireland where dentists have ceased to provide health service dentistry, or provide it only to patients who are exempt from charges.
“I am determined to provide fair and equable payment for Health Service treatment of patients in Northern Ireland.”
Notes to Editors:
1. Northern Ireland has 735 general dental practitioners working out of the 361 registered Health Service practices.
2. In May 2007, 898,000 patients were registered under the health service. 40,000 patients (approx.) were registered with Denplan, the largest private dental scheme. It is not possible to say, at any one point, how many practices no longer accept health service fee-paying adults (ie people who are not exempt from health service charges), as this is a matter for individual dental practices, and the position is very fluid.
3. Northern Ireland also has the highest rate in the UK of dental practitioners per head of the population – 48 per 100,000, as opposed to Scotland (41), England (30) and Wales (21).
4. Since April 2005, when the Practice Allowance was first introduced, the Department of Health, Social Services, and Public Safety has invested approximately £7.7million into the 361 practices involved in this scheme (fee-paying adults are those patients who contribute to the costs of their health service treatment - currently 80% of the costs).
5. The extra funding means that health service committed practices will now be getting, on average, an annual Practice Allowance of £29,600 (an increase of £8,100).
6. The full practice allowance will only be payable to those dentists who are Health Service committed.- ie those practices providing a specified level of Health Service treatment, including care and treatment to fee-paying patients.
7. Cross-infection procedures: the funding is to allow dentists to install more sophisticated sterilisers (autoclaves) and other equipment to clean and sterilise dental instruments. The Department sets high standards of cross-infection control which dentists are required to comply with if they want to provide health service treatment. Cross-infection is patient-to-patient infection.
8. Salaried dentists: the allocation of up to £400,000 is to resource new salaried dentist posts in the Northern and Western Health Boards, and we have invited similar proposals to come in from the other two Boards as soon as possible to address the identified shortfalls in Health Service dentistry in their areas and we await their reply.
9. The funding announced today has been made available in the main through recycling funding already within the General Dental Services budget. It is money which would have been paid to dentists carrying out health service treatments but is now unspent due to the movement of dentists into private practice. The in-year (non-recurrent) money for cross-infection measures was identified in June Monitoring (first stage of the internal quarterly expenditure monitoring exercise which all Departments undertake). The package of measures did not require cuts to other services or additional funding to the Health Budget.
10. Vocational Training: all UK dental students must undertake 1 year of vocational training before they can practice on their own.
11. Information on dentists’ earnings in NI is not available. However, information on dentists’ earnings in England in 2004/05, the latest year for which figures are available, can be found on The Information Centre Report, Dental Earnings and Expenses, 2004/05, on the Information Centre for Health and Social Care website 
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12. Media queries to DHSSPS Press Office on 02890 520074, or out of hours contact the Duty Press Officer via pager number on 076 9971 5440 and your call will be returned.
