Health Bill
3:55 pm
Nadine Dorries (Mid Bedfordshire, Conservative)
On dental comparisons, many dentists have chosen not to provide NHS services. In my area, one cannot find a dentist who will treat NHS patients. If that situation were allowed to develop and optometrists and opticians found themselves running out of budget and unable to treat patients, having waiting lists, and experiencing difficulty negotiating with PCTs, they, too, might decide to withhold their services and become solely private providers. Then they would not have any contract with the PCT and would operate, much as dentists do, as wholly private opticians.
We would then find the situation in relation to optical services the same as the one in relation to dental services. Somebody who needs an eye test but cannot afford one might not be able to have it because the opticians will have opted out of the system.