To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many full-time equivalent NHS dentists have been employed in North Shropshire constituency in each of the last five years.
Information on a whole time equivalent basis is not available, as dentists are able to vary the amount of hours they work and to vary their national health service commitment. Many dentists do some private work. In North Shropshire constituency, the numbers of NHS dentists, as at
Number | |
---|---|
2000 | 31 |
2001 | 31 |
2002 | 31 |
2003 | 33 |
2004 | 36 |
Note:
This data comes from the Dental Practice Board and relates to the number of dentists working in the general dental service and personal dental service in North Shropshire.
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Annotations
Derek Watson
Posted on 20 Jun 2005 11:10 am (Report this annotation)
Dentists only give up their NHS contract when they lost their LAST NHS PATIENT. Therefore the Department of Health counts them as NHS dentists even if (for example) they only have children patients on the NHS, or two patients (instead of two thousand).
So although it looks as though the number of NHS dentists has increased, NHS availability is probably hitting the floor. The problem is that the government does not make it attractive for dentists to work in the NHS because dental fees have only increased by 9% since 1992 (compared to 75% across the NHS as a whole).
Derek Watson
CEO, Dental Practitioners Association
www.GDPA.org.uk