There’s hope that help for the dental desert that is South Holland might be on the horizon.
The government has announced that dentists who set up a practice in an area with poor access to NHS care will be given a £20,000 bonus.
The ‘golden hello’, as it’s been called, will be available for up to 240 dentists in areas branded ‘dental deserts’ in the NHS. South Holland is one of those areas.
The Dental Recovery Plan, the government name for the proposals, includes an extra £15 for dentists to see a patient who hasn’t visited for two years. They currently get paid £28.
The extra money comes from a new £200m government pledge.
There’s also an increase of up to £50 for treating patients needing more complex work.
In areas where there are issues of access, a new mobile dental service could be introduced while fluoride could be added to the local water source, something that doesn’t happen in South Holland, but does most other areas.
A spokesman for the Department for Health and Social Care said: “The plan aims to make sure everyone who needs to see a dentist, particularly those who have been unable to access care in the past two years, will be able to do so, making access to care faster and fairer.”
But the British Dental Association has criticised the plans.
On the ‘golden hellos’ it says it has not been confirmed where eligible areas will be, and the payments will be staggered. It continues that a more generous £25,000 scheme in Scotland had not seen much of a take up.
It also says it hasn’t been stated who will run the mobile dental vans, who will pay for them and who will staff them.
General Dental Practice committee chair Simon Charlwood, said: “‘Recovery plan’ is unworthy of the title.
“With dentists willing to do NHS work in short supply, there is of course the potential for golden hellos to just move the recruitment problems from one area to another.
“While facts are in short supply, claims have been made about this plan we simply do not recognise.
“How will ‘millions’ of new appointments be generated, when there is nothing to boost capacity or bring dentists back to the NHS? How is £200m in any way generous, when it’s less than half the levels of underspends seen last year, and expected again this year?”
