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It’s back to dental school for review leader
3rd Aug 2009
Jimmy Steele will be teaching dental students at Newcastle University
Jimmy Steele is heading back to dental school, having set himself the task of implementing the training to take NHS dentistry into the realms of a world leader.
In his independent review published in June, Professor Steele set out a blueprint for a better, more accessible delivery of NHS dental services, recommending significant changes to the way the system is organised.
And, at a recent Westminster Health Forum seminar evaluating these recommendations, he promised that NHS dentistry could ‘lead the world in providing an oral health service' if changes are made ‘in an evolutionary way'.
Now, having landed the new role of head of school of dental sciences at Newcastle University [he was formerly professor of oral health services research there] he faces the challenge to ‘educate students to incentivise patients in good oral health'.
Speaking with Dentistry magazine, he says: ‘I now have to look at the review and ask myself: “Do I agree with the principles, what's my role and is the school following these pathways?”
‘The principles within the review are probably what we are training for, even though we are not training for the NHS system itself. The principles of prevention are the principles of good dentistry and this is what we want to achieve.
‘We've had 60 years of doing things in a certain way and I've got to change, too, and it's a difficult thing to do.'
Regarding the timescale for when NHS dentistry could become a world-leading oral health service provider, he warns: ‘I think we will have a system in place within five years, but everyone has to think brutally in terms of cuts in public spending, because these would be really bad for the consumer.
‘A three per cent cut, for example, is much worse for the citizen than just the cut in spending and will have a long-term effect. Patients are going to need a strong voice because we don't die of poor oral health.'
Meanwhile, Professor Steele will be welcoming dental students to the school of dental sciences at Newcastle University on 4 September.
Speaking of his six months working on the review, he admits that engaging with dentists at a grass-root level, as he did in his roadshows, was ‘difficult, challenging and a bit scary at times'.
‘I miss it. It seems ages ago and a completely different world.'
Author
Julie Bissett
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