Dr. Anne O'Neill:

The independent practice document is an internal one for our members. It reflects the fact they are best able to provide care for patients when they can control the parameters in which they provide it.

One of the big difficulties that I have with Smile agus Sláinte is that it relies on an extended contracted care model to provide care to children. It tends to look at bundles of care. From a dental public health perspective, the patients who I know and provide care for rarely fit into a tick-box scenario. It does not seem to have considered the interfaces between contracted care and support care for people who do not fit into that model.

With Covid and its stresses and strains on the system, contracted care reduces availability. If we go to a fully contracted childcare service for dental, one will find some areas where there are not sufficient resources available to provide it because there are just not enough dentists in the system. One of my colleagues this week said that they were looking for an associate to join an established practice but they could not find anybody. Dentists are busy. Covid has reduced the capacity of the entire system. There is not that additional resource available to expand. Even if the contract for a contracted child dental care scheme was extremely attractive, the resources are not there in the system to actually provide it.