General anaesthesia for child and adult special care dental patients: CDS Group study day 2020

 

Our organising committee has been working hard over the past few months to line up some high-level and engaging speakers, to keep you abreast of any new clinical developments and ensure your skills and knowledge are up to date.

Stats show us that there continues to be a staggering rise in the number of children waiting six months for dental operations over the past three years in England – from 514 to 1498. On average, children waited 85 days for treatment last year – 15 days more than in 2013. So, we chose general anaesthesia as our theme, as we know this is a current hot topic for the CDS. 

Our presenters will be helping to guide you through the challenges the guidance has on dentists’ ability to implement the guidelines, and how working with a multi-disciplinary team can present challenges to getting the right treatments for your patients, and how to overcome them.

 

We decided to hold the event in Birmingham, as this was the most popular choice for people to get to, through a recent survey we carried out.

Aside from the clinical lectures, we hope the day also provides a day to reflect and pause and take a break from the day to day stresses and strains we are all under. 

We know that stress is a growing problem in our profession, and especially for those working in the Community Dental Services. This is an area the BDA has been tackling, recently winning the argument on access to the NHS Practitioner Health Services programme for all dentists in England (and they’ve also flagged what provision exists for the other three UK countries). 

Your CDS reps have also been working hard this year, campaigning for better terms and conditions for the community dentists, as well as better care for our patients. 

Charlotte Waite, the Chair of the England Community Dental Services Committee fought hard to get the plight of patients being unjustly fined for NHS dental treatment taken seriously, and highlighted the ridiculous amount of bureaucracy dentists face, in just trying to treat their patients. This is not an issue we are going to let go and we’ve expressed concern over the Department of Health recently backtracking on its pledge to stop automatically fining patients. 

We’ve also been lobbying on the issue of getting better access to treatment for older patients who require domiciliary dental care, and we are pleased that the CQC has now included oral health in its inspection criteria.

We supported the communication of a new ‘Was not brought’ tool to help dental teams take a consistent approach to missed appointments and ensure safeguarding guidance is being followed. 

We really hope these study days will provide a great opportunity to network and meet colleagues from across the UK, from different specialties and working environments – sometimes it helps to get out of the surgery and talk to others who are going through the same, or different challenges and experience to you. 

David Barber, Chair of the CDS Group Committee