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August 15th Lincolnshire LDC Update Number 57
Where has the last month gone? This week, I must admit I missed waking up to find out how many medals we had won the previous day at Tokyo. Loved the experts giving their opinions in the BBC studio. I now know a lot more about Modern Pentathlon than I did 2 weeks ago. What a great performance by team GB! British Lions … not so good.
On to matters dental …………. Sorry to lead on this and I know I have touched on this subject before, but if you have ever been a practice owner, either still in practice or retired, please read the following carefully:
Worrying precedent on vicarious liability
A recent High Court case highlighted a far-reaching precedent for practice owners, particularly those holding NHS contracts in England and Wales, in that they can now be held to be vicariously liable for the actions of their self-employed associates.
This case is not a victory for patients, as some have claimed. Dentists have a legal and professional obligation to hold indemnity, but in this case the lawyers have deliberately chosen to disregard this and pursue the practice owner instead. So, the only winners here are the claimant law firms.
The judgment only applies to NHS practice owners in England and Wales, as the judge did not feel she had to decide whether that non-delegable duty applied to purely private patients. However, NHS practice owners in Northern Ireland and Scotland, while not immediately impacted by this decision, should be aware of the precedent which it may set for cases taken in their jurisdictions.
Are your NHS practice details up to date?
It is important for patients that NHS dental practices have accurate information on the NHS website. This should include opening times and whether the practice is taking on new patients. Check if your practice’s details are up to date. If they are not, the NHS' online visual guide explains how to gain editing rights and update your profile.
Recruitment and retention
As you are only too aware, this is major concern in Lincolnshire and affects everyone whether it is in Primary Care, Secondary Care or Special Care Services. The eagle eyed among you may have seen an article in yesterday’s newspaper which headlined “Why Unfashionable Counties are the Best Places to Live “Not surprisingly, Lincolnshire was featured.
NHSE, HEE and other agencies are trying several avenues to encourage dentists and DCPs to the area. We recently sent out a flyer from HEE regarding the Assistant Dentist Programme as follows:
“Following a successful pilot in East Anglia we are delighted to announce that we wish to recruit to a number of positions within primary care in Lincolnshire, Herefordshire and Worcestershire ICS areas. These will be full time salaried posts working in primary care and ideally suited to dentists recently completing Foundation or Core training and wishing to gain further practice experience without specific UDA targets. The posts will comprise of 4 days in practice and one day on an attachment aligned to the dentists’ specific clinical interest.“
NHS England and NHS Improvement (Midlands) and Health Education England (Midlands and East) wish to engage with potential hosts to explore how hosting a post can be beneficial to your patients and practice, plus how you can support the programme. A webinar will be held on Tuesday 10th August at 18:30 where the programme will be explained in detail and there will be an opportunity to ask questions of colleagues leading the process in NHS E/I and HEE
We are going to circulate information on how you can submit an Expression of Interest following the webinar on the 10th August and unfortunately there will be a tight turnaround. We would be grateful if you could reply to this email indicating whether you wish to attend. If you are unable to attend the webinar but wish to discuss the Programme with a member of the commissioning team please contact:
Lincolnshire: - Carole Pitcher carole.pitcher@nhs.net
Herefordshire and Worcestershire: - Terry Chikurunhe terrancechikurunhe@nhs.net and Nuala Woodman nuala.woodman@nhs.net
I did attend the webinar but there seemed to be only a few others from Lincolnshire. For NHS Practices this a great opportunity to attract a younger member of our profession who can build their skills away from a target driven contract. Please do consider it
Death in service
Some of you may have known Stefan Schaedel who worked at Cathedral View Dental Practice in Lincoln. Stefan recently died unexpectedly. He is a great loss to the practice and his patients and it made me think again about single handed practitioners and what happens if there is a death in service.
If you are an NHS practice owner with associates or a single handed practitioner and do not have a nominated partner and die in service, the practice contract and associated value in goodwill reverts back to NHSE. This has obvious implications for the widow / widower and the family left behind. If you have associates it will also affect their ability to work. If you are a husband and wife dental team, what do you have in place if something happens to you both?
Please take your own independent advice and contact the BDA but it is very important you do not leave this matter unattended. I have seen first-hand what happened, when a single handed practitioner died and had no nominated partner.
And Finally ……………….the LDC is here to help and support all our practitioners. This week alone we have helped a practice with vaccinations, a practice asking about employing an overseas dentist under the PLVE scheme, a practice asking about domiciliary care for one of the patients and a practice whose patients are having difficulty accessing orthodontic treatment. The work is full and varied and we support not just NHS Practices, but Private practices as well. Our contact details are lincsldc@gmail.com . If a patient contacts you with a concern and you feel unable to deal with it, by all means as a practitioner / practice seek advice from the LDC but respectively, may I ask you, not to tell the patient to contact us directly. This is not the role of the LDC.
If you have been away on holiday, I hope you have come back rested and refreshed. If you have not managed to go away, I hope you have taken some time off and had a break from work. The next 7 months to April 1st will be very interesting with much to do.
Best wishes
Kenny Hume Lincolnshire LDC
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