What comes next for NHS dentistry in Wales? Understanding your options

With the updated NHS dental contract in Wales approaching its six-month mark, Louise Anderson explains how clinicians have turned to peer support to navigate ongoing challenges with software, contract targets and patient access.

In the absence of official support and guidance, a WhatsApp group has helped clinicians in Wales navigate their way through the choppy waters of the first few months of the updated NHS dental contract in Wales. Faced with inadequate (or absent) materials and unready software, clinicians banded together to help guide each other through the confusion to some measure of clarity. Despite improved software, mutual support is still being sought and offered by the group as the contract approaches its six-month mark.

As Practice Plan regional support manager, based in Wales, Louise Anderson, explains to Patrick Johnston, senior digital editor at Dentistry.co.uk, during a recent LinkedIn Live, things are a little better, but still not right.

Louise also mentions that acknowledgment by those in authority of the difficulties practices have faced is patchy and variable. Some local health boards have conceded that the percentages set out in the segmented contract may not have been pitched at the correct level and have agreed to alter them. This now gives practices in that area greater hope that they will be able to deliver against those metrics. However, other boards have declined to make any changes or concessions for their practices. How they will fare remains to be seen. As with many things in healthcare in the UK, dental practices in Wales are in yet another postcode lottery!

Is there any alternatives to the NHS dental contract?

As many practices fear they will struggle to hit their revenue targets, as the supply of new patients via the Digital Access Portal (DAP) dwindles, Louise outlines how she has helped some practices introduce an additional guaranteed income alongside their NHS contract to help insulate them from any shortfall. The low-cost membership plans she has developed offer an option to long-standing, regular attending patients at practices who are reluctant to wait up to two years for their next appointment, to be seen annually. Does the emphasis on new patients and urgent care mean the pendulum has swung too far the other way?

Practice Plan has been welcoming practices into the family since 1995, helping them to grow profitable businesses through the introduction of practice-branded membership plans. If you’re looking for a provider to be by your side through a safe move from NHS to private then, with over 300 years’ dental experience in our field team, you’re in safe hands with Practice Plan… Be Practice Plan and get in touch.

Call 01691 684165 or visit www.practiceplan.co.uk/be-practice-plan/.

This article is sponsored by Practice Plan.