Source · Select Committees · Health and Social Care Committee
Recommendation 4
4
Deferred
Mandate practices to adhere to NICE recall guidelines and prevent automatic patient removal
Conclusion
Practices should abide by NICE recall guidelines of up to two years for most adult patients, recognising the need for more regular recall for some, but people should not automatically be removed from dentists’ registers of NHS patients without good reason. This should be monitored by NHS England to ensure it is being carried out. (Paragraph 19) The Dental Contract
Government Response Summary
The government accepts the recommendation but responds by detailing measures unrelated to NICE recall guidelines or patient registration. The response outlines NHS England's guidance on ringfencing dental allocations for ICBs in 2023/24 and measures to address underperforming contractors by rebasing contracts and recommissioning activity.
Government Response
Deferred
HM Government
Deferred
Accept The Department accepts this recommendation. NHS England have provided guidance for ICBs that requires dental allocations to be ringfenced in 2023/24, with any unused resources re-directed to improve NHS dental access in the first instance and not spent on other services. A schedule setting out the dental ringfence was issued to ICBs through NHS England’s 2023/24 revenue finance and contracting guidance. To ensure compliance against this requirement, NHS England are meeting with and collecting monthly returns from all ICBs to establish current and planned spend against the ringfenced dental allocations budget. In response to the challenging financial position of the NHS, in November, NHS England confirmed that where ICBs had not spent all of their allocation on improving access to dentistry, ICBs would be able to retain any underspend and use this to balance their bottom line and any other pressures. ICBs will decide how to use any forecast underspend in line with this guidance. We are currently considering arrangements for 2024/25 and any opportunities to further strengthen oversight of funding that is used to deliver access to NHS dental care. We also agree with the Committee’s view that while access is a remaining challenge, we need to tackle underperformance by contractors to maintain the levels of care that have already been agreed. As part of the reforms announced in July 2022, we have introduced legislation to enable commissioners to address worsening access to NHS dental services for patients where this is due to persistently under-delivering contractors. In the first instance NHS England will encourage commissioners and contractors to work together to resolve underperformance against the contract at the mid-year review point or by voluntarily rebasing their contract. Where this is not possible, commissioners will be able to rebase contracts to the highest level of UDAs delivered over a three-year period and recommission unused activity to other providers. As a result of these changes, we expect patients to see an improvement to access over the longer term from the recommissioning of undelivered NHS dental care and a reduction in persistently under-delivering contracts. The NHS Dental Contract