Apolline

Apolline in "The Dentist" asks the question: Should dentists help the Government implement its dental health policy?

My first instinct is to determine what policies the government actually has. In this I am drawing a distinction between policy and policy statements. I have problems accepting that a policy is existing unless some purposive action has been taken. Anything else remains just a policy statement. Hence, expanding access. Is this policy or a policy statement, considering the limitations on funding? Policy also has to have a purpose (otherwise why was it developed?). Hence, the NICE guidance on recalls. This fulfils my prior condition in that action has been taken (requirement to fill in boxes on forms, monitoring etc). But where does it stand as to its clear and published purpose? Is it to increase the number of patients going to the dentist at no change in cost (the favourite from what I hear and read)? Is it in response to a published evidence base (absent) as part of a policy to put as much of dental practice on an evidence-based footing as possible? In both of these cases it is, in any case, more of a strategy to help deliver a policy. The bottom line is, sadly, that we cannot rely on politics to tell us what policy is. We have to work it out for ourselves and this is not easy.

So, to return to the question. Should dentists help the Government implement its dental health policy? If we decide that there is a policy and we can also work out what this policy is then we can say that we can support it if it is, itself, supported by an evidence base. The practical problem arises, of course, when non-evidence based strategies to deliver a policy end up in legislation or a condition of holding or retaining a dental contract. We're now into ethics. That's another day.

http://www.the-dentist.co.uk/detail.php?id=631