Oasis Tickets & ORE Exam: Something in Common?
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- Published: Monday, 09 September 2024 09:47
- Written by Peter Ingle
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The new government has said it will keep much of the former administration‘s Dental Recovery Plan.
Shackling new graduates and mobile units may be less in favour now, but many key parts of the plan remain essential to Wes Streeting‘s ambition to improve NHS dental access.
Some components of the plan are progressing better than others. As recently reported by GDPUK here, production of dental hygienists and therapists has already dramatically increased. Dentist numbers though, are another problem.
The hoped for game changer was to encourage more overseas graduates to work in the UK and specifically in the NHS. In the space of a year or two the UK could pull in large numbers of dentists. Training them here would take longer and be far more expensive.
So recent headlines such as: “Red tape blocking thousands of foreign dentists working in the UK despite huge NHS demand,” are not the message that ministers will want the public to be seeing.
To get more overseas qualified dentists at work in the NHS requires the GDC’s notoriously slow process of registration to be changed. The Council has struggled to run the Overseas Registration Exam (ORE) with a lack of places being available. In some cases the delays were so bad that applicants could not sit part 2 in the time set out after passing part 1, and had to start over again.
True to GDC form there have been consultations on changes to the ORE. Their December 2023 report referred to their, “long-term work to develop an improved comprehensive framework for routes to registration for overseas qualified dental professionals.” Those familiar with the GDCs workings will expect leisurely progress.
In February 2024 tucked away on their website, the GDC published a multi-page document titled
“Registration in the UK of dentists and dental care professionals who have qualified overseas.”
It concluded with a helpful timeline of “legislative change and operational improvements.” Ministers may not be reassured to see that it covered nine years when the situation had deteriorated, and concluded in March 2024, with no further developments scheduled.
The LBC story referred to above looked at the current state of the ORE exam. There are over 3000 people trying to sit it. In 2024 there will be just 1200 places available for part 1. This is at a time when The British Dental Association estimate that in England alone, 5.6 million adults have tried and failed to book a dental appointment in the last 2 years.
LBC quoted one dentist who said she had moved to the UK two years ago, with dreams of using her skills in the NHS after working as a dentist for five years in India.
Regardless of her experience, she can currently only work as a dental nurse while struggling repeatedly to get a place to sit the ORE exam. It is "practically impossible" to secure a spot on the ORE, with places on the online system becoming fully booked within seconds.
She explained her frustration, "People come [to the clinic] every day saying ’I’m in desperate pain’, people pulling out their own teeth. I know what to do... but I have to say sorry, I can’t help you."
In a timely analogy, Shivani Bhandari of the International Dental Organisation UK, compared finding a place on the ORE to getting the most sought after concert tickets.
The previous government’s idea of provisional registration was designed to by-pass the existing ORE arrangements. However the GDC would still need to be involved.
The General Dental Council, said they were working to increase capacity. But they say the practical nature of parts of the exam makes that difficult. "It needs equipment, supervisors and places where that can happen, that’s quite hard to set up in a hurry", the organisation’s executive director Stefan Czerniawski told LBC. He omitted to say just how long the GDC have been struggling with ORE capacity, which would have added some much needed context to his comments about doing things in a hurry. Nor does part 1 require much equipment, and even that has nowhere near enough capacity to meet demand.
The GDC wants the new Health Secretary to confirm if the government will push on with plans to introduce another alternative route into practice for overseas dentists. The previous government’s idea of provisional registration was designed to reduce pressure on the existing ORE arrangements. However the GDC would still need to be involved. With this uncertainty, the GDC’s reluctance to commit to major expansion of the ORE becomes more understandable.
LBC quoted a Department of Health spokesperson who said: “We are determined to rebuild NHS dentistry, but it will take time and there are no quick fixes. Strengthening the workforce is key to our ambitions. Dentists that meet our high standards should be able to enter the workforce efficiently and we are exploring the best ways to achieve this."
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