Without full details on the proposals we can neither support nor oppose the proposed dental graduate tie-in.
We remain, however, unconvinced that a tie-in will solve workforce issues as we consider that the move away from NHS work has been driven by a lack of investment in NHS dentistry and a lack of competitive pay with, and onerous conditions compared to, the private dental market.
The LDC Confederation would like all recent graduate dentists to spend a proportion of their time delivering NHS dental care, but this should be a positive decision, not a compulsion.
If a compulsory commitment to the NHS is required, we would like this to be reframed as a positive career development pathway with appropriate support, rather than a simple compulsion.
While we are neither supportive or opposed to the proposal at present, we are concerned that implementation may not be practical as it will require dental practices for these graduates to work in and there is already a shortage of dental practices willing to take on dental foundation trainees.
As this policy has been announced by the government, however, we will work with the Department of Health and Social Care to explore the proposal.
What is the problem?
The government is trying to solve a workforce issue through compulsory NHS commitment for new dental graduates.
It is not clear how this will be implemented, however, or what the impact on dental schools, practices, patients or graduates would be as no impact assessment has been published.
There has been no clarification on whether this would apply to all new entrants to the register or just graduates of UK dental schools.
Given that dentists require practices to work in, it is not clear how private businesses will be encouraged to recruit or offer placements to recent graduates when so many practices have left the dental foundation training scheme.
Careful messaging needs to be applied to ensure that the public do not come to regard NHS dentistry as a second tier service delivered by recent graduates who lack the experience of longer serving dentists.
