For better .... or worse?

Despite the likely date of the general election being four months away, the Conservatives celebrated the arrival of 2010 by publishing their draft manifesto for the National Health Service. There is a short section on NHS dentistry. They claim that their policies ‘will allow us to give one million more people access to an NHS dentist’. They also promise to give every five-year-old a dental check-up, by re-introducing school dental inspections.

It was last May that they published their reform proposals in a document entitled Transforming NHS dentistry. Judging by the manifesto most of their ideas remain unchanged, despite considerable criticism being levelled at their policy by the profession at some of their short-term reforms. More hopefully they promised in the longer term to reintroduce patient registration, a move that was broadly welcomed.

The draft manifesto promises to introduce the unpopular short term measures, but makes no mention of restoring registration. The Conservatives, if elected, will ‘introduce a new dentistry contract’. They say they will ‘tie newly-qualified dentists into the NHS for five years’. Leaving aside the ethics of forced labour, one can reasonably ask how many this would affect, whether EU graduates would be exempt and whether there are enough jobs in the NHS. Dental graduate unemployment is on the horizon if not here already. So has the proposal been costed? Is there available money?