Nottingham Dentists Rated Among Englands Worst

Mon, 05 Jan 2009

Dentists in Nottingham have been rated as among the worst in the country for failing to carry out work under new dental contracts.

According to a report by website thisisnottingham.co.uk, the city’s dentists failed to complete 140,000 Units of Dental Activity (UDAs) that they were contracted to carry out last year, missing the target by more than 11 per cent.

As a result, Nottingham has been ranked as the 18th-worst of 133 areas in England for dental work .

Dental administration services provider DPAS said some five million UDAs were not delivered by dentists across the country in 2007/8, up five per cent on the previous year.

It added that many dentists would have to give 'claw back' money to the primary care trusts which pay them.

But a spokesperson for the NHS Notts County said most of its contracted dentists can carry the money forward to next year.

She commented: "Our number one priority is to secure access to an NHS dentist for local people. We do not believe it is in our interests to claw back money from those dental practices with the ability to deliver more NHS services in the following year."

Wollaton dentist Amarjit Gill, who will become the first Asian president of the British Dental Association in 2010, claimed the dental contracts were flawed because dentists were able to meet their targets without taking on any new patients.

"It is creating an access problem. One-and-a-quarter million fewer patients are seeing their dentists now than when the old system was in place," Mr Gill said.

"Before a dentist could do what they wanted to do and get paid on a per-item basis. Now if dentists over-perform it is at their cost and if they under-perform they have to give the money back."
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