Celebrating 75 years of NHS dentistry – dental news and updates

Celebrating 75 years of NHS dentistry - dental news and updates

As we mark 75 years of the National Health Service, Ben Atkins explains why some hard work will guarantee a bright future for NHS dentistry.

Please introduce yourself

My name is Ben Atkins, I’m the past president of the Oral Health Foundation and I had seven different NHS contracts over the northwest of England, from triage centres to a homeless clinic. I’ve been really committed to NHS all the way through my career because it’s a wonderful thing.

And for me, as a business owner, it’s a regular source of income. We’ve been through quite a few recessions over the years, and, in dentistry, those contracts are quite bomb-proof. It’s really important to have stability.

Something I really like within dentistry is that you’ve got a mix of NHS and private – we’re quite masters of our own destiny, if we let ourselves.

What are your thoughts on the NHS in the current climate?

We all moan about who pays us. If you go through every single member of staff I’ve ever had, they all deserve more money in their own heads. I’ve never had one member of staff come to me and say, ‘You know what, I would really like less money’. We moan about the NHS, we moan about the rulebooks.

For me, the NHS has been so good to me in my career. It’s given me so many opportunities. But the key thing I’ve always recommended and talked to my associates about is, do you even know who your local commissioners are? Do you even know what they want? If you don’t know what they want, you can’t fulfil it and, quite frankly, get more money.

I love the NHS. We’re in such a massive opportunity at the moment because the government is looking at dentistry. They’re aware. I’ve never know such an awareness of dentistry in my whole career. We all know this is a massive, challenging time, but actually, for once, the government knows that too.