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Re-evaluating the dental contract reform prototypes

BDJ In Practice volume 37, pages 472–475 (2024)Cite this article

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By Tom King, Head of Policy and Research, and Tim Connolly, Senior Policy Adviser, British Dental Association

Healthcare policy wrestles with the trade-offs between cost, quality and access.1 These issues will be, and have been, at the core of how we go about reforming the dental contract in England. The official evaluation of the contract reform prototypes, which ran for most of the 2010s until March 2022, concluded that the trial failed on at least two of these measures.2 Yet those dentists who worked within the prototypes remain positive about the experience. So, with a new government having made a manifesto commitment to reform the contract, we decided to see if the quantitative data from the evaluation chimed with the direct, qualitative insights of some of those who participated in the prototypes programme.

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References

  1. Kissick W L. Medicine's Dilemmas: Infinite Needs Versus Finite Resources. Yale University Press, London, UK: 1994.

  2. Department of Health and Social Care. Dental contract reform: a report on learnings from the dental contract prototype test between April 2016 and March 2019. 26 January 2023. Available online at: www.gov.uk/government/publications/dental-contract-reform-evaluating-the-results-of-the-prototype-scheme/dental-contract-reform-a-report-on-learnings-from-the-dental-contract-prototype-test-between-april-2016-and-march-2019 (accessed October 2024).

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  1. British Dental Association, London, United Kingdom

    Tom King & Tim Connolly

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  1. Tom King
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  2. Tim Connolly
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Correspondence to Tom King.

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King, T., Connolly, T. Re-evaluating the dental contract reform prototypes. BDJ In Pract 37, 472–475 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41404-024-2953-x

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