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14 July 2006 : Column 2150W—continued
Mr. Lansley: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many (a) general dental services contracts and (b) personal dental services contracts signed by or on 1 April on an in dispute basis remain in dispute, broken down by strategic health authority (SHA) area; and what proportion of the total contracts signed in each SHA area this represents. [84018]
Ms Rosie Winterton: Provisional management estimates on the number of contracts signed in dispute and the proportion of the total contracts signed that this represents by strategic health authority is shown in the table. A contract may be for either a practice or an individual dentist. These estimates were made in April.
Further management information on the position at the end of May will be available shortly.
| Strategic health authority | Number of contracts signed in dispute | Proportion of contracts signed in dispute to all contracts signed (percentage) |
Miss Kirkbride: To ask the Secretary of State for Health pursuant to the answer of 18 April 2006, Official Report, column 209W and the answer to question 81211, on NHS dentistry, why information on the number of people registered with an NHS dentist in each constituency available on 29 June was not collected. [84352]
Ms Rosie Winterton: Patient registration was part of the remuneration arrangements under the former system of general dental services up to 31 March 2006. Under the new system, the concept of registration no longer forms part of the remuneration system. The Department is therefore introducing a comparable means of monitoring the number of patients covered by national health service dental services, but the transition to the new arrangements has meant that it will be some months before the new measure is available.
As set out in the answer to question 81211 information will be available in due course via the NHS Business Services Authority on the numbers of patients who receive care or treatment from NHS primary care dentists on one or more occasions within a given period. This will provide a measure that is broadly similar to that of patient registration under the former system of CDS. We expect the first information to be available in the autumn.
Sir Paul Beresford: To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) how many dentists who signed the new NHS dental contract who are (a) in dispute and (b) not in dispute had (i) withdrawn and (ii) given notice of their intention to withdraw from the contract by 1 July; [85315]
(2) how many and what percentage of dentists who signed the new NHS dental contract in dispute remained in dispute on 1 July. [85318]
Ms Rosie Winterton: There is no centrally available information on the number of dentists who have withdrawn from national health service dental contracts or given notice of their intention to withdraw.
Provisional management information on the number of contracts signed in dispute and the proportion of the total contracts signed that this represents by strategic health authority (SHA) is shown in the table. A contract may be for either a practice or an individual dentist. These estimates were made in April.
Primary care trusts are working with dentists to resolve as many disputes as possible locally.
| SHA | Number of contracts signed in dispute | Proportion of contracts signed in dispute to all contracts signed (Percentage) |
Sir Paul Beresford: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many NHS dentists had completed (a) 100 per cent. (b) 75 per cent. and (c) 50 per cent. of their allocated annual units of dental activity on 1 July. [85316]
Ms Rosie Winterton: The information requested is not collected centrally.
Sir Paul Beresford: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what percentage of NHS paying patients treated were under the new NHS dental contract in each of the three payment bands on 1 July. [85317]
Ms Rosie Winterton: The latest available data are from 1 April to 31 May 2006. The following table sets out the percentage of completed national health service treatments in England within each of the bands processed during the period 1 April 2006 to 31 May 2006.
| Payment band | Percentage of NHS treatments |
| Notes: 1. Data shown are from activity forms processed in April and May 2006. 2. Activity forms are processed by the NHS Business Services Authority within a monthly scheduling programme. The data represent activity entered onto the system between these dates and do not represent treatment actually carried out during the period. 3. Complicated courses of treatment take longer to complete. The reported activity for the early months of the new contract is therefore more heavily weighted towards simpler treatments. 4. All data are provided by The Information Centre for health and social care. Source: NHS Business Services Authority | |
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