Odd Question in Lords' about Surgery Sundries Profits
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- Published: Tuesday, 01 October 2024 11:38
- Written by Peter Ingle
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Parliamentary dental questions tend to be on a limited range of subjects. Access problems, potential reforms and initiatives, and a certain amount of sectarian point scoring, are frequent topics.
A recent question in the Lords which is likely to have escaped the dental community‘s notice, broke new ground. It might also be revealing about a rapidly growing party‘s intentions for dentistry.
“To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the appropriateness of dental surgeries profiting from the sale of dental hygiene products, including mouthwashes containing chlorhexidine; and what assessment they have made on the financial impact for dentists and patients.”
It fell to Barroness Merron Under-Secretary for Health and Social Care to answer.
Her reply came in two parts. She began her response: “No assessments have been made on the appropriateness of dental surgeries profiting from the sale of dental hygiene products, including mouthwashes containing chlorhexidine, or the financial impact for dentists and patients.”
Labour have been keen to show that they are a party of business and the second part of her reply did not drift from that line: “The National Health Service contracts with independent dental providers to deliver NHS dental treatment in primary care settings. Dental practices are businesses and are therefore able to decide how they operate, providing they remain compliant with the appropriate regulations.”
In many way this was a strange question. Across the UK a mixture of over 14,000 independent and corporately owned pharmacies dispense NHS prescriptions and deliver immunisation and health screening. They also sell a range of dental hygiene products including mouthwashes containing chlorhexidine. This did not appear to interest the questioner, Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle.
As Nathalie Bennett, the Baroness was leader of the Green party of England and Wales from 2012 to 2016, and became their second member of the Lords in 2019.
It is not clear whether the question was based on a concern that dentists were making excessive profits from sales of products which should be taken into account when setting NHS remuneration, or a specific issue with chlorhexidine containing products.
In their general election manifesto for 2024, the Green Party committed to a ‘fully public, properly funded health and social care system, and to keeping the profit motive well away from the NHS.’
There was a pledge to deliver ‘guaranteed access to an NHS dentist’ if they won the election, and to stop the ‘systematic underfunding of dentistry,’ and the ‘scandal of dental treatment deserts’.
Most significantly, the party pledged to allocate additional budget to NHS dentistry, with the aim of reaching three billion pounds a year by 2030.
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