Dental Tribune UK Edition, September 20-26, 2010, Vol. 4 No. 22

in 3w, 5w, 8w Dual & 10w Dual versions Insurgery Power Whitening Home Whitening 6% - 30% We have mastered Laser dentistry for you The Pioneers of Teeth Whitening ‘Eco’ packaging. Protect our future Laser and whitening specialists since 1992 Call us now: 01227 780009 - www.quicklase.com Laser Dentistry £2250from only Cutting Edge Lasers inc VAT QWQL259810RG T he chief executive of the British Dental Health Foundation, Dr Nigel Carter, claims it will be peo- ple’s oral health that will suffer most as a result of the closure of the medical advice helpline NHS Direct. The axing of the 24-hour nurse-led service is set to leave the future of 1,400 nurses un- certain, as well as 15,000 callers a day who rely on its profession- al advice. The government has said it will replace the service with the new NHS 111 service. However, Dr Carter claimed this is not an adequate alterna- tive and said: ‘‘NHS Direct was a quality service and an essen- tial source of information for the public. Sadly, they have re- placed it with a facility which will simply struggle to offer the same standard of assistance.’’ The new 111 service will employ fewer qualified nurses and will instead turn to non- specialist ‘call advisors’ who have completed a 60-hour train- ing programme. ‘‘Unfortunately, when look- ing to slash costs, the tempta- tion is to look to cut staff, their wages or to introduce cheaper employees altogether. This seems to be the case with the 111 service. ‘‘Time will tell on how it will be received in the long- run by the public and whether the same standard of advice can be replicated by non- professionals.’’ He added: ‘‘Regrettably, it will be dental health that will suffer the most. The now aban- doned NHS Direct service regu- larly took more calls related to dentistry than any other area and if you consider on top of that the potential cuts to local PCTs, it leaves us asking just who is going to fill the void in terms of giving qualified infor- mation to the public?’’ He hopes that people will turn to the National Dental Helpline, which is staffed by fully-qualified dental nurses, who offer free advice at a local- rate number. NHS Direct, which was formed in 1998, was staffed by nurses and health advisers at 33 sites around the United Kingdom and received around five million calls a year to its core services, as well as an ad- ditional five million people who used its online health and symptoms checker. A trial of the new 111 phone- line is currently being tested in the North East region, with further trials to be carried out across the UK over the coming three years. The online version of the service is set to remain, in addi- tion to the phone service in both Scotland and Wales. DT Closure of NHS Direct will affect dental health most, says charity ‘NHS Direct was a quality service and an essential source of information for the public.’ September 20-26, 20106 News United Kingdom Edition