NHS Workforce Plan: the laboratory community reacts

Laboratory

Lucy Veal

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The government’s new NHS Workforce Plan has no mention of dental technicians or clinical dental technicians despite the challenges labs are facing with recruitment.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s plan proposes to train thousands more dentists in England over the next five to ten years.

As part of the plan, it will increase training places for dental therapists and hygiene professionals to more than 500 by 2031/32.

It will also increase training places for dentists by 40% to more than 1,100 by this same year.

But with no mention of dental technology, we hear from the lab community about their thoughts on the workforce plan and what it could mean for the industry.

I’m disappointed that the plan from the government has failed to look at how the whole dental team can assist in reducing the strain on the NHS. Clinical dental technicians, for example, could see all denture patients, following an initial check if they are dentate.

Denture appointments typically take up a lot of time, so this would save dentists not just the time of treating them but also the reviews and adjustments following it. Moreover, they can be very effective in sharing out appointments for anything that requires an impression or scan. Technicians can also help with impression appointments.

The current NHS dental system devalues dentistry and results in appointments that do not allow dental professionals to actually do their job. Training more professionals will not solve the underlying cause of why they are leaving the profession. However, making it easier to use the whole team to their full scope may help.

This should result in a triage style dental team where dentists can see far more patients and focus their time on those that cannot be seen by any other professional.

We need to lobby our trade organisations.

The demise of dental technicians has been a concern for a few years now, and it’s not getting any better!

I see a golden (maybe resin and zirconia) era for our profession ahead. I understand the fears of AI taking over, however I can only see it helping.

We have people living longer and keeping their teeth for longer, but they have tooth wear, they loose teeth as normal, and they want to make smile improvements.

More dentist being trained means more patients being seen. The NHS will become emergency work only (extractions etc), and dentists will be so busy seeing patients that the majority won’t have time to design their own work – let alone attempt to manufacture it (print/mill).

Our problem as a profession is us! We need to pay staff well, recruit, train and support in what is a fantastic career again!

From a purely business perspective, scarcity drives value. Financially, its likely the best time to be a technician.

In a few years this will be noted and the new blood will arrive – just like with plumbers a few years back. All of a sudden, the courses had waiting lists of people who wanted to play with nasties.

I personally believe that this all stemmed from the COVID-19 period. The NHS has always been the same, but this attitude was really flagged up when the it was offering help to dental practices and giving them a percentage of their capacity.

The Dental Laboratories Association (DLA) contacted the NHS, but the chief executive of the NHS turned around and said that labs weren’t going to receive any help because we were ‘merely suppliers’, similar to that of plastic cup makers. From that point, the NHS has totally disregarded labs.

I’ve always thought the NHS was a brilliant service, and labs and technicians are very important in dentistry. Purely on the business side of dentistry, I consider laboratories to be like banks because of the fact everything we manufacture is on credit. So in order for dentistry to keep running, the laboratory side needs to be kept financially stable or everything else will spiral out of control.

The NHS needs to look into labs and technicians because, if you think about, even a one-man laboratory has about 50 clients on hand, doing 50-60 cases a day. Capacity wise, we deal with a lot of cases and patients. Therefore, they need to support laboratories and look into putting something in place for technicians.

The older technicians don’t want to have anything to do with dentistry anymore, and the younger technicians are having to pick up the pieces.

What do you think? Email your thoughts to [email protected].

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