Dental Services: Registration

(asked on 17th February 2017) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what reimbursement applicants to the National Dental Performers' List receive as compensation for earnings lost while waiting for their applications to be processed in the event that such a period is longer than the target of 12 weeks.


Answered by
 Portrait
David Mowat
This question was answered on 22nd February 2017

NHS England’s standing guidance which sets out the expectation of a 12 week turn around for routine applications does not include any expectation of, or provision for, compensation if an application takes more than 12 weeks. The Performers List safeguards are important and are there for the protection of the public. Therefore, it is vital that Primary Care Support England and NHS England ensure each application provides the right evidence to enable it to be considered. For some applications it can take a number of months to properly complete these checks.

NHS England has informed us that it is currently evaluating all consequences of the current delays associated with the processing of performer applications.

NHS England advises that information on the total number of applicants awaiting a decision to join the National Dental Performers' List (new applications) and what the average time those applicants have been waiting for their application to be processed is not held in the format requested. New applications for a performer number are made by Dental Foundation Trainees (DFTs) and dentists who graduated from dental schools outside England seeking to work in the NHS in England. For new applications information is only held centrally on applications from DFTs. NHS England advise that of the 867 applications to join the performer list by DFTs waiting to be processed as at 9 February 2017, 866 of these have now been processed. Other applications to join the list, such as from dentists trained outside England are handled locally and numbers are not available centrally. NHS England advise, however, that they expect these also to be completed as a priority.

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