British Dental Association welcomes Conservatives' focus on dentistry

Main Category: Dentistry
Article Date: 07 Oct 2004 - 12:00 PDT

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The British Dental Association has welcomed today's announcement of the Conservatives' Action plan for dentistry. The consultation, launched by Andrew Lansley during the Party's 2004 Annual Conference, seeks to address problems centred on access to NHS dental care.

Ian Wylie, Chief Executive of the British Dental Association, said:

"This consultation is a useful contribution to an area in which much progress must be made. Dentistry has suffered neglect by successive governments. The legacy of the past decade is there for all to see in the queues to access NHS dentistry we have seen across the country. The wide range of issues in the Action plan for dentistry are, in themselves, damning indictments of the way that NHS dentistry has been effectively ignored for more than ten years."

Queues to register with an NHS dentist, the increased difficulty of finding an NHS dentist who still has vacancies for NHS patients and even queues to access private dentistry, have all illustrated problems with dental provision. The BDA has long called for action to address these problems, including a significant increase in the number of dentists trained in the UK and a mechanism to ensure funding for dentistry keeps paces with funding for other areas of NHS primary care.

The BDA looks forward to submitting a formal response to the consultation.

Ends

Notes to editors:

1. The consultation was announced by Andrew Lansley, Shadow Health Secretary, at the 2004 Conservative Party Conference on 5 October 2004.

2. The British Dental Association is the trade union and professional association for dentists across the UK. It has nearly 20,000 members working in all fields of dentistry, from general practice to the armed forces.

3. For further information, please contact the BDA media team on 020 7563 4145/6.

British Dental Association

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