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NHS 'recovery plan' fails to deliver new dentists or more appointments

2025-02-13 - 2025-02

NHS leaders have acknowledged a recovery plan for dentistry in England, launched by the previous Conservative government a year ago, has comprehensively failed.
One aspect of the plan - 'Golden Hello' payments to encourage dentists to start working in underserved areas - has seen only 39 dentists appointed out of a target of 240.
Another idea - the introduction of mobile dental vans - has completely failed to deliver any extra capacity.
At a Parliamentary committee NHS leaders acknowledged the fundamental problem was the contract that dentists are offered to carry out NHS work - and the best thing was to rip it up and start again.
The Dental Recovery Plan was first outlined by Conservative health ministers in February 2024, to try and address a crisis in NHS dentistry in England.
Many patients struggle to access NHS dental care, with some towns now known as 'Dental Deserts', in which there are simply no NHS dentists at all.
UK-wide research carried out by BBC News in 2022 found that 9 out of 10 NHS dentists were no longer accepting new adult patients.
8 out of 10 were no longer taking on children as patients, even though they are meant to be entitled to free care.
But senior bosses from NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) have now told a committee of MPs that the recovery plan outlined a year ago has failed.
Professor Sir Chris Whitty, currently Interim Permanent Secretary at the DHSC - the most senior civil servant - was asked whether the plan was on track to deliver the extra 1.5 million treatments for patients that had been promised by the last Government.
"The very short answer is no.
"Within the Dental recovery Plan, there were four components, of which I think one didn't start at all, which was on dental vans.
"There were three (additional) elements that were aiming to address recognised problems...but the solutions were unsuccessful."
Sir Chris said that a "patient premium" to incentivise dentists to take on new patients had failed to result in any significant increases in patient numbers.
A "Golden Hello" payment scheme has so far only seen an additional 39 dentists contracted to work in underserved areas, against a target of 240.
And a reform of the amount of money dentists are paid for individual treatments had failed to bridge the gap with what they earn for private work.

For success in bioelectronics, build with nature-inspired design

2025-02-19 - 2025-02

Alexandra Rutz, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering at the McKelvey School of Engineering, and Somtochukwu Okafor, a doctoral student in Rutz's lab, have 3D printed bioelectronic scaffolds that have the properties cells need to form new tissue. They published the result of their work this month in the journal Advanced Materials Technologies.
"Most traditional scaffolds have been on materials that have been inspired by nature, but here, we are taking that concept and applying it to what we call functional materials," Rutz said. "These are materials that are designed to perform a certain function, such as being electronically conducting."
The bioelectronic scaffolds that Rutz and Okafor print appear as dark-colored dots about 6 millimeters in diameter -- about the size of a pencil eraser -- and are floating in water. Okafor has carefully created these tiny scaffolds with a polymer known as PEDOT:PSS, which she has processed into a water-based gel used as an ink.
"When you think of electronics, you aren't thinking of them being in water," Okafor said. "But that's an advantage of using PEDOT:PSS as the conducting material. We are creating hydrated electronics that maintain their electronic properties in an environment that can also sustain living systems."
Okafor, a fifth-year doctoral student in biomedical engineering, said that while their team isn't the only one using this process, their work is unique.
"Bioelectronics as a field isn't new -- think cochlear implants, pacemakers and smartwatches -- but we are trying to interface with biology to make the technology more like systems that would occur in nature," Okafor said. "We have borrowed approaches in 3D printing and tissue engineering and combined it with bioelectronics. All these processes have individual advantages that they bring to the table, and we are combining them into one."
Most traditional materials that conduct electricity are stiff, which may negatively impact formation of tissue. Rutz's lab created their scaffolds from a soft, conducting hydrogel and with pores that are about 150-300 microns in size that can influence how cells behave within the scaffold, such as how they attach to others, how they move through the scaffold and how they multiply. The pores help to form a lattice-like structure that grows upward to support the cells. The researchers can also adjust the angle of the pores so that the grid lines are diagonal instead of vertical and horizontal.
"The pores have to be big enough to allow the cells to move around, but small enough that the cells have structure to hold on to and don't fall through," Okafor said.
The tissue the team seeks to create could be used as human tissue or plant tissue, making it versatile for several uses.
"We have many projects in the lab that are envisioned for tissues-on-chips technology, where this could be used for drug development purposes, toxicology, environmental toxicity and other projects where human tissues are in a dish," Rutz said.

Viking skulls reveal severe morbidity

2025-02-21 - 2025-02

Sweden's Viking Age population appears to have suffered from severe oral and maxillofacial disease, sinus and ear infections, osteoarthritis, and much more. This is shown in a study from the University of Gothenburg in which Viking skulls were examined using modern X-ray techniques.
About a year ago saw the publication of research based on the examination of a large number of teeth from the Viking Age population of Varnhem in the Swedish province of Vastergotland.
Varnhem is known for its thousands of ancient graves and excavations of well-preserved skeletons. Now, odontologists at the University of Gothenburg have taken this research further, looking at not only teeth but also entire skulls, by using modern computed tomography, also known as CT scans.
Detailed image analysis
The results presented in British Dental Journal Open suggest that the fifteen individuals whose skulls were examined suffered from a broad range of diseases.
The CT scans show pathological bone growths in the cranium and jawbone, revealing infections and other conditions.
Several individuals showed signs of having suffered from sinus or ear infections that left traces in the adjacent bone structures.
Signs of osteoarthritis and various dental diseases were also found.
All the skulls came from adults who died between 20 and 60 years of age.
The study lead, Carolina Bertilsson, is an assistant researcher at the University of Gothenburg and a dentist within Sweden's Public Dental Service.
The study was performed with specialists in dental radiology at the University of Gothenburg and an archaeologist from Vastergotlands museum.
Together, they conducted the examinations and analyzed the images.
CT scans provide three-dimensional images that enable researchers to study in detail the various types of skeletal damage, layer by layer, in the different parts of the skull.
Greater understanding
"There was much to look at. We found many signs of disease in these individuals. Exactly why we don't know. While we can't study the damage in the soft tissue because it's no longer there, we can see the traces left in the skeletal structures," says Carolina Bertilsson, and continues:
"The results of the study provide greater understanding of these people's health and wellbeing. Everyone knows what it's like to have pain somewhere, you can get quite desperate for help. But back then, they didn't have the medical and dental care we do, or the kind of pain relief -- and antibiotics -- we now have. If you developed an infection, it could stick around for a long time."
The study is described as a pilot study. One important aspect was to test CT as a method for future and more extensive studies. "Very many of today's archaeological methods are invasive, with the need to remove bone or other tissue for analysis. This way, we can keep the remains completely intact yet still extract a great deal of information," says Carolina Bertilsson.

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NHS 'recovery plan' fails to deliver new dentists or more appointments

For success in bioelectronics, build with nature-inspired design

Viking skulls reveal severe morbidity