“Without this we are lost” Says Major NHS Body
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- Published: Friday, 14 October 2022 08:05
- Written by Peter Ingle
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The NHS Confederation is a large membership organisation that supports and speaks for the various bodies that commission and deliver NHS services. Founded in 1990 it is currently led by Matthew Taylor, a heavyweight former political strategist, who was head of policy at 10 Downing Street from 2003 to 2006, as well as a former head of an influential think tank, the Institute for Public Policy Research.
In its recent report “A renewed vison for the NHS” the Confederation gave particular attention to dentistry. This is a welcome break with the tradition of dentistry being ignored or treated as an afterthought by NHS planners and strategists.
Despite an overall desire to see less but better focussed targets across the NHS, the report asked for specific national action on dentistry. There was criticism of the NHS Long Term Plan of 2019 for failing to include “a single paragraph on geographical variation, access or outcomes in dentistry.” The looming deadline facing Integrated Care Systems, (ICSs) of April 2023 was a concern to many Confederation members. They would be inheriting “a broken system with perverse payment incentives and an overall lack of funding.”
The report demanded urgent action at a national level before all ICSs take on dental commissioning. The fundamental challenges facing dentistry could not be tackled at a local level, and the Secretary of State’s recent announcements regarding dentistry were described as “limited action” and “insufficient to meet the scale of the problem.”
The report went on to offer suggestions about how dental services could be helped to recover. First there should be a full review of the existing NHS dental contract and overall funding levels, before ICS’s assume responsibility for services. NHSE should learn from early ICS adopters to identify and share effective interventions.
The other main dental recommendation came in response to workforce shortages and their distribution. Here the report pressed for the recommendations of Health Education England’s 2021 review, Advancing Dental Care, to be implemented. This had set out a requirement to align dental workforce training with patient needs. It also included setting up centres for dental development in areas with significant unmet needs. The Confederation said that the HEE recommendations needed to be agreed and initiated, before April 2023.
Other, more general key points of the report, included “letting local leaders lead” as part of the move to decentralise and reduce the number of national targets, and that there was a need to “be honest about expectations.”
In a recent blog for the NHS Confederation, Chief Executive Matthew Taylor, closed with some thoughts for the Secretary of State, Thérèse Coffey. He wrote, “whatever she does at this stage, nothing is going to make the next chapter for health and care anything but incredibly tough. However the one thing that she and our national leaders can offer is clarity, courage and honesty. For, without this, we are lost.”
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