Clause 23 - Dental Corporations
Health and Social Care Bill
3:30 pm
Mr John Denham (Minister of State, Department of Health; Southampton, Itchen, Labour)
No, as I want to make some progress.
We plan to remove the restriction in the Dentists Act 1921 through enabling powers included in the Regulatory Reform Bill currently before Parliament. The extensive consultations and parliamentary scrutiny proposed in that Bill mean that it will be the end of the year before the change comes into effect.
First, however, we must guarantee NHS patients the same protection whoever treats them. The clause will protect patients who receive dental care from corporate bodies by enabling health authorities to contract with a corporate body for the provision of general dental services in the same way as they contract with individual general dental practitioners. As a result, health authorities will be able to remove from their lists all dental providers, including corporate bodies and/or the dentists they employ, if there is evidence that they are unsuitable. For example, directors of a corporate body who are not dentists may be involved in fraudulent abuses of the fee regulations or they may fail to provide adequately equipped surgery premises. In such cases, the health authority could remove the company from its list. I hope to table amendments on Report that will prevent the same directors reappearing as a new company and going on to the list. I hope that that will allay the hon. Gentleman's concerns.
Any response should be proportionate. The failure of a dentist in a corporate body to provide an adequate service in one part of the country should not usually lead to the entire organisation being shut down or deemed unsuitable, and the measure's appeal provisions will prevent that. However, if there were wrongdoing at the top, that option would be borne in mind.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 23 ordered to stand part of the Bill.