Local Dental Committees annual conference

Motions on contract reform and clawback took centre stage with prototype practice owners testifying that changes needed to be made to the business model to make contract reform workable.

Ninety-seven per cent of representatives voted in favour of a motion from Durham and Darlington LDC calling on the contract reform team to find a new way of measuring activity and for more time to deliver care. A motion form North Yorkshire LDC calling for the suspension of the current prototypes because they are unworkable was narrowly defeated.

Chair of BDA GDPC, Henrik Overgaard-Nielson, outlined the work of the committee in the last year. He noted the frustrations felt by dentists after six years of testing a reformed contract but warned that if they walked away from the process, dentists would be left with nothing but the discredited UDA system. 

“We have to work for a better system and I will have to be carried away from the table before giving up,” Henrik said.