Mike
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Post by Mike on Apr 29, 2023 8:16:17 GMT
gods .. id love a dentist appointment. Believe the issue is that many who are looking for a new NHS dentist haven't had a check up since 2019. And the banding system of charges means that the dentist would basically be doing 3 years of work for a single band 2 payment. Not worth the risk, that could be two root canals and a few fillings for some! Dentists are businesses after all so hard to blame them for not taking patients on that are likely to lead to such an unusually big loss
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kmac
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Post by kmac on Apr 29, 2023 8:35:29 GMT
My memory of this is that when the NHS was being set up in 1948, the dentists refused to take part as employees of the NHS and offered to be contractors of dental health by billing the NHS for the work done, patient by patient.
It was 75 years ago, so it is possible that my memory is at fault, but I have had this understanding for many years. The dentist's case was that, as independent contractors in competition with each other, the customers would have a choice of dentist and therefore all dentists would have to offer a good service or go out of business.
It worked for about 40 years; then the NHS cut costs by reducing the procedures it would pay for and also began to systematically to cut to cut back the payments to dentists by increasing the payments for work done by less than inflation.
I could be wrong. It was 75 years ago and I was young enough to not be interested.
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adrianc
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Post by adrianc on Apr 29, 2023 10:03:57 GMT
gods .. id love a dentist appointment. Believe the issue is that many who are looking for a new NHS dentist haven't had a check up since 2019. 2019? Our local dentist kicked all their NHS patients out in about 2016/7. There are no NHS dentists taking on patients within about 40 miles that I can find.
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Mike
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Post by Mike on Apr 29, 2023 10:25:10 GMT
Believe the issue is that many who are looking for a new NHS dentist haven't had a check up since 2019. 2019? Because of Coronavirus. Many patients who did have an HNS dentist weren't able to have routine checkups for a long time and have lost their NHS spot for one reason or another. NHS dentists absolutely don't want to risk taking those guys on. Since denstists don't have waiting lists (IME) we phoned up our local dentist as often as we could until we got a place. It meant ignoring the pre-recorded "we aren't taking on new NHS patients" message but we got the whole family (4 of us) in within a few months of starting regular phoning. Most people I know phone round a couple of dozen in their approx area and then give up. That's a rubbish system but it seems to be the only one that works, at least round here.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 29, 2023 10:55:02 GMT
About 12/15 years ago the NHS renegotiated the dentist's deal. My dentist was on the negotiating committee. The other side shocked my dentists team. It was clear that the civil service did not understand what they were negotiating. It seemed as if the civil service wanted to pay too much for some actions and not enough for others. But the deal was too good for the dentists to turn down especially since people with painful mouths will pay anything to solve the problem.
The stated intent was to maximise preventive actions The actual negotiations minimised preventive actions Which the dentist negotiation teams actually pointed out to the civil servants. Since the payments were so low under the new NHS scheme most dentists have walked away and now do private work only.
You get the service you pay for. Anyone who thinks we have world class civil servants has been living in cloud cuckoo land. The idea that nationalising industries suddenly makes services better is nonsense.
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Post by moonraker on Apr 29, 2023 11:34:49 GMT
About 12/15 years ago the NHS renegotiated the dentist's deal. My dentist was on the negotiating committee. The other side shocked my dentists team. It was clear that the civil service did not understand what they were negotiating. It seemed as if the civil service wanted to pay too much for some actions and not enough for others. Anyone who thinks we have world class civil servants has been living in cloud cuckoo land. The idea that nationalising industries suddenly makes services better is nonsense.
Civil servants work to Ministers and to Government policies, though the Dominic Raab affair has prompted accusations of how they manipulate the system, such us presenting several options, all of which except the one they favour are (almost) obviously impractical.
The churning of civil servants and Ministers does not facilitate the acquisition of specific experience and knowledge. The other day a former junior Minister reckoned that two years in the job were the minimum necessary, but many don't last that long. When I was a Government press officer, I had a new Tourism Minister every year, affable coves, who spent a lot of time visiting tourist attractions, posing for a photo-opportunity and chatting to the owners/managers. Always pleasant for me, but I don't think any of them made any difference to policy.
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Post by bracknellboy on Apr 29, 2023 13:38:02 GMT
About 12/15 years ago the NHS renegotiated the dentist's deal. My dentist was on the negotiating committee. The other side shocked my dentists team. It was clear that the civil service did not understand what they were negotiating. It seemed as if the civil service wanted to pay too much for some actions and not enough for others. Anyone who thinks we have world class civil servants has been living in cloud cuckoo land. The idea that nationalising industries suddenly makes services better is nonsense.
Civil servants work to Ministers and to Government policies, though the Dominic Raab affair has prompted accusations of how they manipulate the system, such us presenting several options, all of which except the one they favour are (almost) obviously impractical.
The churning of civil servants and Ministers does not facilitate the acquisition of specific experience and knowledge. The other day a former junior Minister reckoned that two years in the job were the minimum necessary, but many don't last that long. When I was a Government press officer, I had a new Tourism Minister every year, affable coves, who spent a lot of time visiting tourist attractions, posing for a photo-opportunity and chatting to the owners/managers. Always pleasant for me, but I don't think any of them made any difference to policy.
there is a good article in today's Times on the issue of ministers vs civil service and the interaction between them. It reads as a very balanced article, with people on both sides of the fence recognising issues on their side as well as on the other. One thing that does seem to come across fairly clearly is that a) Raab was well know for his inappropriate behaviour and had been for quite a long time b) that there are other ministers of a similar ilk [this is recognised / admitted by their peers] c) the quality of work - and commitment - of some civil servants is simply not what it should be. I can't help but wonder whether attitude/behaviour issues on behalf of ministers - exhibiting workplace behaviours that have long been considered unacceptable - may partly be a reflection of the lack of real world work/business experience. Reflecting a high proportion of 'career politicians'.
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Greenwood2
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Post by Greenwood2 on Apr 29, 2023 16:51:57 GMT
Civil servants work to Ministers and to Government policies, though the Dominic Raab affair has prompted accusations of how they manipulate the system, such us presenting several options, all of which except the one they favour are (almost) obviously impractical.
The churning of civil servants and Ministers does not facilitate the acquisition of specific experience and knowledge. The other day a former junior Minister reckoned that two years in the job were the minimum necessary, but many don't last that long. When I was a Government press officer, I had a new Tourism Minister every year, affable coves, who spent a lot of time visiting tourist attractions, posing for a photo-opportunity and chatting to the owners/managers. Always pleasant for me, but I don't think any of them made any difference to policy.
there is a good article in today's Times on the issue of ministers vs civil service and the interaction between them. It reads as a very balanced article, with people on both sides of the fence recognising issues on their side as well as on the other. One thing that does seem to come across fairly clearly is that a) Raab was well know for his inappropriate behaviour and had been for quite a long time b) that there are other ministers of a similar ilk [this is recognised / admitted by their peers] c) the quality of work - and commitment - of some civil servants is simply not what it should be. I can't help but wonder whether attitude/behaviour issues on behalf of ministers - exhibiting workplace behaviours that have long been considered unacceptable - may partly be a reflection of the lack of real world work/business experience. Reflecting a high proportion of 'career politicians'. I don't know, if you can't tell someone their work is not good enough without it being called bullying (or personal criticism or whatever) would make it extremely difficult to run any company, let alone the government. I haven't been following this closely though.
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adrianc
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Post by adrianc on Apr 29, 2023 17:08:33 GMT
I don't know, if you can't tell someone their work is not good enough without it being called bullying (or personal criticism or whatever) would make it extremely difficult to run any company, let alone the government. It's all about HOW that's done.
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Greenwood2
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Post by Greenwood2 on Apr 29, 2023 19:40:59 GMT
I don't know, if you can't tell someone their work is not good enough without it being called bullying (or personal criticism or whatever) would make it extremely difficult to run any company, let alone the government. It's all about HOW that's done. HOW can it be done?
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ozboy
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Mine's a Large One! (Snigger, snigger .......)
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Post by ozboy on Apr 29, 2023 20:09:54 GMT
Re "bullying" et al. We have become a nation of far too many pitiful wet wimps, with no backbone - it is very easy to tell that no-one (or VERY few) on here ever sold photocopiers. In Central London. In the early '80s.  |
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Post by bracknellboy on Apr 29, 2023 21:02:20 GMT
Re "bullying" et al. We have become a nation of far too many pitiful wet wimps, with no backbone - it is very easy to tell that no-one (or VERY few) on here ever sold photocopiers. In Central London. In the early '80s. maybe not: but I planted my a**e on a few at a number of Xmas parties*. [*Ok, this isn't actually true, but I've been at parties where others did]
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registerme
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Post by registerme on Apr 29, 2023 21:18:52 GMT
Re "bullying" et al. We have become a nation of far too many pitiful wet wimps, with no backbone - it is very easy to tell that no-one (or VERY few) on here ever sold photocopiers. In Central London. In the early '80s. What's a photocopier?
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Post by bracknellboy on Apr 30, 2023 5:41:46 GMT
Re "bullying" et al. We have become a nation of far too many pitiful wet wimps, with no backbone - it is very easy to tell that no-one (or VERY few) on here ever sold photocopiers. In Central London. In the early '80s. Ctrl+C Ctrl+V
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adrianc
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Post by adrianc on Apr 30, 2023 8:02:16 GMT
It's all about HOW that's done. HOW can it be done? You really don't know how to give feedback on somebody's poor work without demeaning and attacking them personally?
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