Dentists calling for Capita to take responsibility
Dentists nationwide are calling for MPs to force NHS subcontractor Capita to take responsibility for its administrative issues.
It is Capita’s job to provide the National Performer Numbers, essential information which is required from dentists working for the NHS.
Many cases have been brought to light where NHS practices are now at risk of closure “as a direct result” of the management giant’s failings, as noted by The British Dental Association (BDA). Due to the lack of information workers are being prevented from practicing NHS dentistry.
Henrik Overgaard-Nielsen, the BDA’s chair of General Dental Practice, commented that “this latest failure from Capita has forced hundreds of NHS dentists to sit idle for months” and has branded the situation “a disgrace”.
“Practitioners are being denied a livelihood, while hundreds of thousands of patients are being left without access to NHS dentistry,” he continued. “Neither patients nor practitioners should have to pay the price for failure by an NHS subcontractor.”
In some cases NHS dentists have had to wait up to a year for their National Performer Number.
Under previous manager NHS England, the average application to the performers list was reviewed and responded to in around six weeks.
To formalise their place on the National Performers List last November, over 550 dentists were forced to fight for an extension.
At the time of the crisis, Henrik Overgaard-Nielsen remarked that “if NHS England hadn’t extended this deadline, over 500 foundation dentists would have had to stop working on 1 December,” and that “we were clear that when a subcontractor fails, our members should not be expected to pay the price.”
