Your brain needs vacations

Up until the 1960's everyone worked most Saturdays -- 6 days a week, Sunday's off was the norm. Vacations were 2 weeks per year, usually in the summer and they were always a drive away. However, you always got off at 5pm, left your work at work, and a "commute" was NOT the norm., and your lovely wife had the house and kids in tiptop shape. Both weeknights and weekends were about getting together with the neighbors/friends, going to town events, picnics and kid functions. We never felt like we had to "get away" as much. With today's high inflation, both parents working, commutes, and hectic schedules -- I'd wan't a vacation too, and not necessarily from work.

Privatise everything says UKIP

UKIP will privatise all services and scrap PCTs and SHA replacing them with elected boards. Scary stuff, thankfully they won't get into power! Not sure about their concept of democracy either. This is the quote from the Health Service Journal:

The draft health manifesto, seen exclusively by HSJ, says PCTs and SHAs would be replaced with elected county health boards made up of health professionals. They would tender all services through franchise agreements, which private companies, charities, cooperatives and legally recognised organisations could bid for, but all state owned assets would be retained. Patients who wished to opt out of the NHS would be given “health credit vouchers” to spend on a private healthcare plan.

The voucher thinggumy is bizarre too. If the services are privatised why would a voucher to go private be of use?

Of course, as everyone knows the private sector is expensive, unaccountable and inefficient. Let's hope people will understand the damage UKIP could do to our national treasure!

NHS market reforms are not linked with better care

This headline is in this week's Health Service Journal:

Research by the think tank Civitas looked at more than 150 published studies of market reforms introduced to the NHS both under a Conservative government in the 1990s and under the present Labour government since 2002. 

Analysis concluded that although waiting times have shortened, and patient access and provider efficiency have improved, much of this can be attributed to greater funding and the use of targets, rather than the introduction of the purchaser/provider split.

Of course the Greens have been saying this for years, health care is a service not a commodity...

Time to the purchaser / provider split!

Should nurse pledge the allegiance to compassion?

Yesterday's announcement by the Prime Minister's Commission on the Future of Nursing and Midwifery which calls for nurses and midwives to "renew their pledge to society to provide compassionate care" is patronising, insulting and inappropriate. The pledge is designed to restore public trust in the NHS, but as the public are very aware it is the over emphasis on targets, finance and privatisation which is destroying public trust. Last week's Mid Staffordshire report highlighted a lack of governance at board level far more than a lack of desire to care by nurses.

 

Nurses and midwives do not need to renew a pledge to society, they need to be allowed to do the job they were trained to do. This means ensuring that there are enough of them to cope with the increasing demands in hospitals and in communities - something that Labour have failed to do.

 

Calling for nurses to pledge compassion will alienate many committed and hard working staff. Nurses understand the value of care and people trust nurses to deliver care compassionately. People do not trust the over emphasis on targets, they are losing trust in managers' ability to provide adequate support and they do not trust Labour's drive to commercialise the NHS.

 

If the NHS is to restore trust in its service, it needs to provide assurance that public and staff concerns are listened to at the highest levels - and that they are acted on. It also needs to kick the increasing commercialisation and treat health care as a service not a commodity.

 

Greens to launch dental health policy for the general election

On Monday 1 March the Green Party will launch a dental health policy which the Greens believe will enjoy widespread public support and boost the party’s hopes of a general election breakthrough.

The Greens are committed to the founding principles of the NHS – including free dental healthcare, which they say could be provided for an extra £1.8 billion a year.

A party spokesperson said today, “£1.8 billion a year is a trifling sum for a huge improvement in Britain’s dental health service. Everyone who wants one should have access to an NHS dentist, and we must end the scandal of British children in the twenty-first century suffering the pain and misery that come with poor teeth.”

The Greens dismiss water fluoridation as a “cheap, tacky, sticking plaster solution with side-effects.” They say that “mass medication of doubtful efficacy and potential side-effects is no substitute for a proper dental healthcare strategy. We need to be teaching new parents how to look after their toddlers’ teeth, and teaching young children from nursery onwards all about how to look after their own teeth properly.

“And in addition, we need everyone to have access to the right professional support, which means guaranteeing free access to an NHS dentist for everyone who wants it.”

A summary of the new briefing to be launched on Monday is below. Full copies of the briefing, and advance copies of the Green Party’s full 2010 general election briefing on health, are available from the press office, 020 7561 0282, press@greenparty.org.uk.  

Summary of:

Fair, free and effective: Green Party proposals for the dental health service

1. Currently, only half the UK population is provided with free dental healthcare. NHS dentistry charges are a regressive tax: they hit the poor hardest and prevent many from accessing dental care.

2. Access to dentists should not depend on where you live. But getting access to an NHS dentist is difficult and there is wide variation across the country:

• Between 55% and 60% of NHS practices are not taking new NHS patients.
• Some Primary Care Trusts have no NHS dentists taking on new patients.

·         Most areas have around 55 dentists per 100,000 people. But some have as few as 25, while others have over 100.

3. Less than half of the UK adult population and only around two thirds of children are visiting NHS dentists. The percentage of children who have visited NHS dentists within the previous 24 months has fallen in recent years – a worrying sign.

5. Some areas have opted for the addition of fluoridation chemicals to tap water in a bid improve dental health. The Green Party says:

·         The use of fluoridated water to improve dental health is not a viable solution – it’s more like “sticking plaster with side effects”.

·         Any (slight) benefit from fluoride in drinking water has to be weighed against the increased risk of osteosarcoma and dental fluorosis.

·         Mass medication may breach the European Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine – it’s unethical to medicate people without their consent.

·         The use of fluoridation demonstrates a failure to tackle the underlying problems of dental health provision.

6. The Green Party wants:

·         Free basic dental care available to all.

·         Everyone to have access to an NHS dentist if they want one.

·         An end to fluoridation of our tap water.

·         A comprehensive dental health strategy including proper education for children and their parents.

                              

7. Assuming that some people will wish to remain private, to provide free dental care to 75% of the population would only cost the NHS an extra £1.8 billion a year.

A new Green health policy

Fantastic news just in, the vast majority of amendments to our health policy were passed and we now have a brand new policy to go into the general election with. Thank you to everyone who helped pull this together over the last nine months and who helped get it through on the conference floor.



We have kept our principled stand against the privatisation and marketisation of the NHS and strengthened the role of clinicians, experts and patients in how the NHS is run.

We have gone for a far more evidence based approach to health care, making sure it is the experts that decide which treatments are cost effective for which conditions rather than politicians. We have strengthened the framework for protecting the public with wider regulation to ensure all medicines are safe and all health care practitioners are regulated.

We have got a new model for primary care to prevent the continued privatisation of GP surgeries and to place them into democratic public / patient ownership. This is radical stuff and sets us far apart from the other privatising parties, i.e. Lib Dems, Tories and Labour.

A strong committment to dignity and compassion plus real support for the benefits of breast feeding. Dental care not mass medication by fluoride.

Tory health plans

If you're in to horror movies then the Conservative Draft Health Manisfesto should be right up your street.

Particular snippets include:

• Less assesment of the cost - benefits of treatments (they attack "unaccountable bureaucrats in NICE" which begs the question, how exactly are they going to assess the benefits of treatments?)
  
• But it's OK, there is going to be less policical intervention in the NHS. Hmm... isn't that more "unaccountable bureaucrats"?
• They plan to create an independent board for the NHS. Independent as in "unaccountable bureaucrats", I assume.
  
• They are going to scrap politically motivated targets. Isn't that like saying they won't do what the public want? Quick results in A&E etc.???
• More privatisation and competition of course, how else will Tory share portfolios increase?

Does anyone actually remember the NHS under the Tories???

The best way to tackle health inequalities, Mr Cameron, is to tackle all inequality

This is from Rupert Read:

For once, we can agree with the Adam Smith Institute: David Cameron’s new headline plans to “banish health inequalities to history” by introducing “a health premium that targets resources on the poorest areas” will fail.

The key reason why it will fail was already brought out implicitly on Left Foot Forward a couple of months ago – it is that you cannot attack major societal inequalities, such as health inequalities, without attacking inequality itself.

In other words, by far the most consequential way of reducing health inequalities, it turns out, is to target economic and other societally-central inequalities directly. Not to target absolute poverty or ‘deprivation’, not to pursue economic growth, but simply to reduce inequality (whether by reducing high earnings, or by increasing low earnings).

Here is how Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett put this point, in their celebrated recent book (pp. 233-4) ‘The Spirit Level: Why more equal societies almost always do better’ (a book given the plaudit by the New Statesman recently of being their “Book of the Decade”):

“For ten years Britain has had a Government committed to narrowing the health gap between rich and poor. In an independent review of policy in different countries, a Dutch expert said Britain was ahead of other countries in implementing policies to reduce health inequalities.

“However, health inequalities in Britain have shown little or no tendency to decline… Rather than reducing inequality itself, the initiatives aimed at tackling health or social problems are nearly always attempts to break the links between socio-economic disadvantage and the problems it produces.

“The unstated hope is that people – particularly the poor – can carry on in the same circumstances, but will somehow no longer succumb to mental illness, teenage pregnancy, educational failure, obesity, or drugs.”

This passage almost reads as if it were written in response to today’s Conservative initiative. If Cameron’s advisers had taken the trouble to read Wilkinson and Pickett, they would have saved themselves from the embarrassment of this new policy of theirs which is fated to fail.

To use a medical metaphor, the ‘health premium’ policy is a band-aid, which will do no good in curing a degenerative condition.

If Cameron were serious about reducing health inequalities, he would target economic inequality directly, as Wilkinson and Pickett recommend. But that would be very hard for the Conservative Party to stomach, seeing as the Conservatives are the party which, under Margaret Thatcher and John Major, pursued policies which hugely escalated inequality, when they were last in power.

In the Preface to their book, Wilkinson and Pickett note that they almost called the book ‘Evidence-based politics’, on analogy with the term ‘evidence-based medicine’.

The subtitle of Left Foot Forward is ‘evidence-based blogging’. The evidence is in – and it shows very clearly that you cannot cure the nation’s health ills, except by curing the nation of the disease of rampant economic inequality.

Medication of the masses

Being a lowly Green I rarely achieve a national media hit but yesterday I spoke with a journalist from The Times who was writing a piece on whether selenium should be routinely added to wheat and, given the recent furore in Southampton where the residents will soon be medicated with fluoride whether they like it or not, I thought I'd say a little more on why it is wrong to mass medicate people.

For me, the issue is not one to be fought on whether the populations that are medicated would have an overall benefit, whether the increased toxicity of waste water will impact on the environment, or about individuals who will suffer the consequences of receiving a drug or supplement that their body doesn't need. For me, the issue is about choice vs techno fixes.

I am very aware that there are health issues to be addressed within the wider population. Anyone walking down a high st in Britain can see the obseity epidemic unfolding in our communities. Not only are people consuming too much, but many are consuming the wrong types of food. Others are becoming restless, depressed, anxoius and stressed. I could go on and on...

There are three broad approaches to health care. Firstly we can simply pick up the pieces when it has all gone wrong, just as the NHS often does. Secondly we can educate, incentivise and make it easier for people to make healthy choices. Thirdly we can force everyone to take preventative medication, supplements etc.

The power to take individual decisions and to make choices as long as those choses don't harm others is of great importance to me. There is a saying "Do as you will but harm no one" which I particularly like. The Green Party goes further: "The Green Party affirms the importance of individual freedom and self expression. We believe people should be free to make their own decisions on matters which do not adversely affect others. Its importance lies in valuing the opportunity people have to make their own decisions, accept responsibility for them and develop in their own way."

Primum non nocere translated as "First do no harm" should be at the root of health care. Should the needs of some outweigh the damage to others that mass medication can cause? Even if the vast majority benefit from the medication, should we harm the few? I think the answer is still no.

More difficult is if there is no possible harm to anyone or anything by the mass medication. Despite this being very unlikely, I would suggest that mass medication still removes the ability of individuals to choose. We need to make mistakes in our lives, to learn from them and to make better choices next time. This is a bit 'school of hard knocks' but it beats medication of the masses anyday.

Finally, the EU agrees with me... Article 5 of the EU Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine says: "An intervention in the health field may only be carried out after the person concerned has given free and informed consent to it."

Vote Margaret Haywood for the Nursing Standard's Nurse Awards 2009

Margy was struck off for whistleblowing and is appealing against the decision next month. Please support her by voting for her here.

We need a new national campaign to protect whistleblowers as current legislation is clearly not working. Anyone who is prepared to stand up and be counted should be valued not punished.

US attacks the NHS

The debate about changes to the US health care has kicked off in a big way. They aren't even bothering with lies or statistics, they have gone straight to the damn lies. The US media seem to be on a bit of a roll, even claiming that Stephen Hawking wouldn't get any care if he lived in England. I know the US media seem to think the outside world doesn't exist, but I think Mr Hawking might be this side of the pond.

This piece in the Guardian should be read for the comments as well as the article. One of the best comments is from yogibear: "It's an interesting feeling to be on the receiving end of such misinformation.".

However, Obama and British government do seem to be sitting on their hands in the face of the Republican lies. They need to show some backbone and expose them.

How can any sane person be happy with the most expensive healthcare system in the world, consuming around 15% of their GDP and that still does not provide care for 40 million Americans?

Six new rights - spin not substance

So are the new 'rights' for patients being unveiled by Gordon Brown anything but spin? He has promised to scrap unpopular targets in favour of a list of rights that patients can demand:

• An operation within 18 weeks of patients first seeing their GP
• A free health check-up for all at the age of 40
• Treatment from an NHS dentist
• Die at home if they suffer from a long-term medical condition
• See a cancer specialist within two weeks
• Be treated in accident & emergency departments within four hours.

They all sound great but strangely familiar, except perhaps for NHS dentistry. Firstly, I doubt very much whether these targets will be scrapped in favour of a 'patient' right. I can't see Brown trying to defend himself on why he doesn't know what the length of waits are and I can't see Burnham not getting concerned if the number of people waiting 18 weeks waits was to increase.

Of course ministers will keep a close eye on these areas and they will come down hard on hospitals and PCTs who are seeing increasing waits. Laissez faire is not something that Labour are good at. It would be quite a bizzarre state of affairs to have a government in a position that it doesn't monitor and manage key indicators of accessibility for NHS service.

This is clearly spin rather than substance, but that said, making it clear what patients should expect is welcome.

The dentistry right is the interesting one. Access to NHS dentistry is extremely patchy across the country and needs significant investment and time to get it right. How many people will have their right to an NHS dentist met by a dentist 20 miles away?

HEALTH SECRETARY’S ‘VESTED INTERESTS’ IN SOUTHAMPTON’S WATER FLUORIDATION SCHEME

Green MEP for the South East Caroline Lucas has challenged the Secretary of State for Health Andy Burnham over his position as vice president of the British Fluoridation Society – at a time when health authorities in Southampton were giving the green light to a “mass medication” water fluoridation scheme.

The Health Secretary was instrumental in proposing the inclusion of compulsory water fluoridation in the Government’s 2003 Water Act. He resigned from this position in recent weeks, but Dr Lucas MEP today joined with UK Councils Against Fluoridation (UKCAF) to question why Mr Burnham’s links with the Society were not included in his register of interests, despite strict Parliament regulations stating such interests must be declared.

Dr Lucas MEP said: “It is of great concern that the Health Secretary was able to closely align himself with a body whose sole business it is to promote water fluoridation, at the same time that he was due to make key decisions about the future of the UK’s water supply. Parliament’s regulations on MPs’ interests are supposed to prevent alliances which can fundamentally inform policy – but clearly they are not fit for purpose.”

Earlier this year, the Green MEP warned that the region’s health authorities were setting a “reckless precedent" for future fluoridation schemes in the South East with their decision to press ahead with fluoridation plans in Southampton.

Although 72% of people in Southampton voted against fluoridation in a poll conducted by the Strategic Health Authority, the SHA is pressing ahead with the scheme. A legal case regarding the highly criticised consultation process has been announced and legal aid has been obtained by the person bringing the case against South Central SHA.

Dr Lucas MEP commented: "The ill-advised decision to implement water fluoridation in Southampton demonstrates contempt for the views of many local people - and for the evidence against fluoridation itself.

"Water fluoridation has simply not been proven to be effective for teeth, and some studies have indicated links between fluoridation and serious ill health effects, including thyroid problems, skeletal fluorosis, bone cancers and mental problems.

"The scheme in Southampton amounts to a mass medication of the population. I have made a formal complaint to the European Commission regarding the failure of the UK Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) to properly classify hexafluorosilic acid, used in fluoridation of drinking water under the UK Water Act 2003, as a medicinal product. The correct classification would likely mean the UK’s water fluoridation schemes would contravene EU law.

“In place of mass fluoridation, the UK Government could be improving the health of our teeth through targeted schemes such as providing free toothpaste for poor families. This decision in Southampton sets a reckless precedent for future fluoridation plans in the South East, and we must be vigilant of further attempts to affect our water in this way."

ENDS 

Notes to Editors

For more information on UK Councils Against Fluoridation, visit www.ukcaf.org 

Letter to Indy on dentistry

Letter to the Independent on the new dentistry report:

Sir, The renewed debate on NHS dentistry is very welcome and Professor Steele's report contains some useful ideas, however unless the government addresses the real problem that many people simply can't afford to pay for dental treatments, improvements in dental health will not take great leaps forward.

Dentistry could easily be funded through taxation and be free at the point of need, making it a universal service and not one that is 'expensive or slightly less expensive'. Free access to dentistry would cost a fraction of the money spent on NHS IT or running the NHS market, yet would deliver massive benefits to the people who need it most.

It is time that the government addressed the real problem, that NHS dentistry fails the primary test of NHS services - it is not free at the point of need.

Stuart Jeffery
Health spokesperson for the Green Party

European Federation of Nurses

With elections approaching fast lots of groups start calling for pledges from candidates and health care is no exception. Dignity and care in health care is essential, but lacking in many areas and certainly has suffered at the altar of NHS finances. Fortunately there are good people out there who are willing to take a stand at the risk of their own career. Margaret Haywood is on of them.

This pledge campaign came in to me by email and like many that I come across, is a no-brainer and should be supported

Stuart

EFN European Election Manifesto

With up to 6 million nurses within Europe, the European Federation of Nurses Associations (EFN) and its members are a significant voting force.

The EFN members are calling on MEPs to support three priorities and use their influence to help:

ü	Implement the European Directive which regulates the Mutual Recognition of Professional Qualifications (DIR 36).
ü	Plan the EU Workforce for Health to meet citizens’ needs.
ü	Deliver Quality and Safeguard Patient Safety.

The EFN members are taking action

· Questioning MEP candidates about how they will influence the EU’s impact on health and employment;

· Engaging with the press on the significant issues MEP candidates need to address;

· Rallying members to make their vote count.

Act now!

For more information visit: www.efnweb.eu

NHS privatisation is barmy says BMA chair

Hamish Meldrum's letter in the Guardian is well worth a read. The BMA have been very hit and miss in the past over the question of privatisation. It is great to see such a strong statement by their chair.

"The suggestion that privatising further aspects of public services would save money is barmy economics (Treasury report suggests cutting thousands of public sector posts, 22 April). Instead of employing the staff and running the service yourself, you would simply be handing the cash to someone else to do so. Where is the sense in pouring money into the clutches of the private sector, whose prime motives are usually founded on making profits for their shareholders?"

BNP nurses should be banned from nursing

Police officer are banned from being members of the BNP or promoting the BNP and yesterday UNISON voted unanimously to call for BNP members to be banned from nursing.

I find it hard to imagine how a profession that has been built on caring and compassion can be compatible with racism. As a registered nurse myself, I would find it very difficult to understand how an openly racist nurse could provide care to without discrimination.

Well done to Unison (which I have recently rejoined after the debacle of the Unite elections), and I hope the NMC take heed of this call.

Green New Deal for the NHS

Today, the Green Party will launch a powerful bid to influence the health agenda towards the next general election.

The Green New Deal for the NHS proposes an extra £500m a year for maternity servces, plus £1.8bn a year for dental care. Most of this would be paid for by savings of £1bn on getting rid of Independent Sector Treatment Centres, and a further £1bn or more saved by scrapping the health care market.

There would be one-off costs of £1bn for reorganisation and at least £12bn to buy back the private finance initiatives, but liberating the NHS from PFI payments would save £1bn a year. So the Green New Deal for the NHS would pay for itself in the medium term, say the Greens.

On maternity services, the Greens' £500m stimulus would create a single-tier approach for all mothers:

 * A wider range of birth choices - including home birth for all women who want it.
 * All women to be entitled to support from a single midwife throughout each pregnancy.
 * A major recruitment drive for midwives.
 * Medical interventions to be significantly reduced.
 * Culture change throughout the NHS so that birth is treated as a normal event - not an illness - in which mothers are empowered and able to be in control.

The extra £1.8bn a year for dentistry would restore the principle of dental care free at the point of access, with an end to the severe difficulties many people are now facing in attempting to find an NHS dentist.




Dignity, compassion and accountability

But improving the health service isn't just about wise spending and better access to services, say the Greens. The Green New Deal for the NHS would also improve the accountability of those services, along these lines:

 * The NHS to be accountable to local government and thus to local people.
 * An end to the purchaser/provider split so that public health, service planners and providers of care are under local government.
 * The NHS to have centrally-defined minimum standards and national agreement on which treatments are available.
 * Local people and clinicians to have a real say in how and where these services are delivered.

Finally the Green New Deal for the NHS would restore and develop a culture of dignity and compassion in the UK's health service, the Greens say:

 * Health services must meet the needs of patients, not the needs of the market and corporate shareholders.
 * Maternity care must meet the needs of women and their babies.
 * Patients suffering with poor mental health must get a real say in the way they are treated. They must be told their diagnosis and must be able to set advance directives that spell out what type of care they want when they are ill.
 * There must be legislation to prevent discrimination against people with mental illness.

Caroline Lucas MEP, Green Party leader - who is widely tipped to become the first Green MP at Westminster in the next general election - said today: "We need to protect and improve the National Health Service, and we need to stop it being used as a vehicle for private profit. We believe the public wants this too. So we're throwing down the gauntlet to the other parties, to match the Green Party's commitment to the NHS."




Note

1. The report can be found at [http://www.greenparty.org.uk/reports][1]

Greens on Maternity

A new policy report from the Green Party will demand radical improvements in UK maternity services.

A Green New Deal for the NHS (1) will demand a single-tier approach for all mothers, funded from the public purse:

* A wider range of birth choices - including home birth for all women who want it
* All women to be entitled to support from a single midwife throughout each pregnancy
* A major recruitment drive for midwives
* Medical interventions to be significantly reduced
* Culture change throughout the NHS so that birth is treated as a normal event - not an illness - in which mothers are empowered and able to be in control

The Greens announced these policies on the day that a study was published in the British Obstetrics and Gynaecology Journal showing that home-birth is no more dangerous than hospital birth, for "normal" pregnanices - something Greens had long claimed, and which has now been demonstrated in a study of half a million births in the Netherlands.

The party's recent spring conference decided the Greens must take the lead in proposing huge improvements in UK maternity services. The conference debate was told:

* In 25% of NHS trusts intervention rates are double the targeted rates
* There is a severe shortage of midwives within the NHS
* The proportion of women giving birth by caesarian section remains at twice the target rate suggested by the World Health Organization
* The bill for medical negligence in childbirth rose almost 60% from 2005 and 2007

NHS maternity services need to change direction towards midwife-led, women-centred services that provides medical interventions only when necessary.

The Greens estimate that the dramatic improvements in maternity services proposed in A Green New Deal for the NHS would cost about £500m.

Green Party leader Caroline Lucas MEP, who is widely tipped to become the first Green MP at Westminster in the next general election, said today: "The UK must achieve the best possible standards of maternity care. Currently, due to shortage of funding, shortage of midwives and excessive interventions, we are far behind where we ought to be. The Green Party will fight the next general election on this platform - huge improvements in the NHS, and not least in maternity services."

Note

1. The full report A Green New Deal for the NHS is scheduled to be published on Friday 17 April.

URL: http://www.greenparty.org.uk/news/15-04-2009-maternity-services.html



Published and promoted by Tracy Dighton-Brown for the Green Party of England & Wales, both at 1a Waterlow Road, London N19 5NJ.

NHS Dentistry

New Green Party policy report to reveal some startling new figures on NHS dentistry:

 * 55% of NHS practices are not taking new patients
 * Little more than two-thirds of children visit NHS dentists - and it's getting worse
 * Access to NHS dentistry is down to "geographical accident"

A new policy report to be launched this week by the Green Party will reveal startling new figures on the state of NHS dentistry, based on Freedom of Information Act research.

And the new report - A Green New Deal for the NHS - will show that just £1.8 billion a year would make NHS dentistry "a service that Britain can be proud of."

The report will show that:

 * Between 55% and 60% of NHS practices are not taking new NHS patients.
 * Access to NHS dentists can range from 1 dentist per 1,000 people - to as little as one-quarter of that, depending on where people live.
 * Some Primary Care Trusts have no NHS dentists taking on new patients.
 * The percentage of children who visited NHS dentists fell from 70.7% in March 2006 to 69.0% in June 2008.
 * Less than half of the adult population is accessing NHS dentistry, and the numbers are continuing to decline. 


Green Party health spokesperson Stuart Jeffery said today:

"The dental service received £2.1 billion of direct funding in 2007/08. If the current NHS dental service was provided free at the point of use, the total cost to the NHS would increase by £531m to a total of £2.6 billion.

"If the NHS wanted to provide free dentistry to 75% of the population (from the current 50%, assuming that some people will want to remain private), the total level of funding would need to increase from £2.6 billion to £3.9 billion. As the NHS currently provides £2.1 billion, an increase in funding of £1.8 billion would be required for patients to have dentistry free at the point of access.

"It seems little to ask to restore NHS dentistry to what it should be - a service that Britain can be proud of."

The full report _A Green New Deal for the NHS_ will be published later this week.

URL: http://www.greenparty.org.uk/news/2009-04-13-dentistry.html



Published and promoted by Tracy Dighton-Brown for the Green Party of England & Wales, both at 1a Waterlow Road, London N19 5NJ.