Rishi says dentists will have to work for NHS but health boss dubs plan an ‘exercise in futility’

New dentists will be forced to spend years on the NHS dealing with staff shortages.

According to plans revealed by Rishi Sunak, they will be tied to the NHS rather than lost to private practice. The Prime Minister said it was unacceptable for two out of three to leave health care immediately after qualifying.

He said it was ‘reasonable’ to require them to spend some time in the NHS after benefiting from training amounting to ‘a very substantial taxpayer grant worth hundreds of thousands of pounds’.

Coupled with an increase in training places, the move should increase the number of dentists offering NHS services and help solve chronic shortages that have left many families without treatment.

But the British Dental Association reacted furiously to the idea. The chairman Eddie Crouch urged the government to make NHS work more attractive rather than simply recommending dentists.

“Ministers need to make the NHS a place where young dentists would want to work, not handcuff the next generation to a sinking ship,” he said. “Given the details, nothing changes our view that the government is trying in vain to fill a leaking bucket. There’s no point in training more dentists who don’t want to work in the NHS.’

The step to get a grip on the dental crisis came as follows:

• The NHS published a ‘Long Term Workforce Plan’, proposing to double medical training places;
• Mr Sunak warned he would not take the ‘easy way’ to make doctors pay, despite fears that union action will hurt patient care and drive up waiting lists;
• Ministers predicted that the push for domestic training and recruitment would drop the share of foreign workers in the NHS from 25 per cent to 10 per cent;
• The Prime Minister hinted that the size of the NHS scheme could mean cutbacks elsewhere;
• NHS England chief Amanda Pritchard warned the plan was not a ‘magic wand’;
• Medical leaders said they may need more money for technology and equipment to meet productivity goals.

An exodus of dentists from the NHS has sent services into crisis in some areas, with desperate patients even resorting to having their own teeth extracted.

In the South West, only 5 per cent of NHS dental practices are still taking on new child patients. According to yesterday’s personnel plan, 40 percent more dentists should be trained in the next ten years. The training courses for dental hygienists and nurses are also being expanded.

The plan also aims to “add greater value to the significant investment that taxpayers make in the education and training of dental staff.” It said dentists would be ‘supported and encouraged’ to spend more time with NHS patients. The bureaucracy will be broken.

But the blueprint suggested that a ‘connection period’ may be necessary to ensure ‘dentists spend a minimal amount of their time on NHS care in the years following graduation’.

Sources said Health Secretary Steve Barclay would look into whether they should commit a certain number of hours a week or carry out a minimum number of NHS stints. These can last five or even ten years, but do not prevent dentists from doing private work on the side. It is not expected to affect existing dentists, even if they have shunned the NHS for their entire careers after qualifying. The final details will be in consultation.

The Prime Minister said it was unacceptable for two out of three dentists to leave the healthcare system immediately after qualifying

Sources said Health Secretary Steve Barclay (pictured) would look into whether they should commit a number of hours a week or run a minimum number of NHS stints

But the BDA said it would not be enough to halt the exodus from NHS work and warned against trying to recruit more foreign dentists to fill the gaps.

The union described the NHS contract as ‘broken’. It said the surveys showed half of all respondents had reduced their NHS commitments since the pandemic.

Mr Barclay is said to have looked at the case for imposing a registration period on doctors to require them to work for the NHS for a minimum period.

Mr Sunak said he was ready to introduce the plan if the number of junior doctors opting to live abroad increased. But he said evidence of large numbers of doctors moving to Australia and other countries was only anecdotal.

“The data shows it’s not as widespread a problem as people think,” he said.

“But if we think there’s a problem there, we’re prepared to take action.”