Rise In Number Of Did Not Attend Cases In Welsh Dental Practices

Thu, 04 Sep 2008

The number of Welsh patients skipping NHS dental appointments has significantly risen since the introduction of a new dental contract, according to Welsh Conservatives .

The party claim that following the introduction of the government’s new contract for NHS dentists in Wales, which prohibit the charging of patients for missed appointments, one practice in Cardiff has reported a 70 per cent increase in DNAs (Did Not Attend) cases.

Jonathan Morgan AM, the Assembly's Shadow Health Minister, described the latest findings as 'frightening'.

"When you consider that in one practice alone, the clinical time lost through missed appointments has increased from 1 working day in 7 before the contract to 1 day in every 4 worked, you begin to get an idea of the scale of the problem," he said.

"Expand this across every dentist providing NHS care in Wales and you have a huge and expensive problem for NHS Wales ."

"Whilst it should be enshrined that healthcare is free at the point of use in this country, patients must appreciate that the cost of not attending pre-booked appointments is enormous."

The Health Minister added: "I am today calling on the Assembly Government to give dentists and orthodontists the flexibility to be able to charge and, crucially, threaten to do so, should patients not attend their appointments."

"This is an unnecessary cost which NHS Wales could well do without."
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