NHS dental shake-up to be tested in England

By Nick Triggle Health reporter, BBC News

A new dentistry system will be piloted in England next year in yet another attempt to improve access to NHS services.

Ministers have agreed to push ahead with plans set out by Labour in summer 2009, which will herald the return of patient registration.
The current system was only introduced in 2006, but led to fewer patients using services.
Up to 60 pilots will be start running from next April taking into account patient list size, quality of care and courses of treatment.
The current system is based solely on courses of treatment, but led to cases where dentists turned away patients because they ran out of their quota of NHS treatments part way through the year.
Instead of improving access, one million fewer patients were treated in the two years after it was introduced than the two years before.

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