Critical Mass

2014 is developing as quite an interesting year if January is anything to go by.  

Check your straps Mesdames et Messieurs. The ride is getting rough.

For a public letter to have any onward effect, a body of opinion must develope into an irresistable call for change.  

ITV's Daybreak in fuelling further the debate produced contrasting performances. The passion of Tony Kilcoyne winning hearts and minds was evidently enough for wee Lorraine ... But the seat shuffling discomfort of John Milne was sadly not the supportive powerhouse that the profession needs from its leadership.  Maybe he needs to get off that fence.  The BDA's PR release, reminding us all of the power of the pilots, suggests that you can kick the GDPC's door down, but the deals are already being done for the new Contract Reform.

If GDPUK is anything to go by, there most certainly is a developing momentum.If the lack of response from the DH, robust or not,is as deafenaing as such political avoidance would normally be considered, I think it fair to say that Dr Kilcoyne and his band of merry men may have found a weak point.

So what's in the pot, cooking at this time?

We have the demand for DH honesty about what is or is not available under the NHS - if mixed practice is to continue, definition of the boundaries and rules is a must - a deal breaker if you will.  Austerity measures in wider Government surely mean the timing is right for a properly defined basic service.  It simply cannot be anything else.

We have the terrible scandal of  Foundation Training and the lack of availability of places - only this week we read a powerful comment on GDPUK from a graduate colleague who has fallen foul of the CoPDenD Stasi for a second year.  Given the EU regulations, Foundation Training as a compulsory requirement must be dead in the water surely?

on an aside, apparently the GDC think the the NHS is the Gold Standard. Yes I splutterred into my cornflakes too!

Here's Version 1 of the  shopping list then:

• A defined core service for NHS funding
• A clearly defined set of limits to permit the business of dentistry to have mixed income streams, the NHS being one of them
• Scrapping of the discriminatory NHS FD Training requirement and the National scheme, and wind up CoPDenD
• Revert FD to locally organised and locally executed; remove opposition ot privately funded early years training by the profession - allow Private VT to develope.

That'll do for this month.  Lets see what next month holds!

References:

See ITV interviews again:

http://www.itv.com/daybreak/hot-topics/dentists-believe-nhs-targets-impact-on-care

FD1 scandal - please read this

https://www.gdpuk.com/forum/gdpuk-forum/vt-national-recruitment-process-opens-9971?start=930#p169631