About BAND
If you are disillusioned with how NHS dentistry has gone, you may be feeling frustrated and like to do something about it, but what can you do? Your patients depend on you and you need the income for house home family food etc. We need to live! BAND hopes to empower NHS dentists to improve the system without going private and leaving the patients that we have cared for over the years in the lurch. BDA membership costs over £36.00 per month & they claim to represent private as well as NHS and Hospital dentists. DPA membership costs £21.00 per month. Neither of these organisations were able to withstand the DoH juggernaut and the new nGDS contract being forced upon us! BAND is in addition to the BDA / DPA, so do join us even if you are a member of the BDA or the DPA to help give support and influence by sheer weight of numbers. BAND is concerned with NHS general dental practitioners and for the £4.80p monthly we will fight hard for NHS dentists. We can be effective if YOU join! Do not be put off by poo pooing from members of those organisations. Realise that they want to keep you where you are. We want to break free. We do have a backbone and we can act. We are not spineless. See: to join We invite the BDA and the DPA to support us and all NHS Dentists by encouraging their members to join our Action in August. If you are a member of either of those associations, please ask them today to give support.


Origins
BAND was set up following the changes of April 2006 to represent NHS Dentists (and Orthodontists). for NHS Dentists It is a pressure group within which we can jointly form aims which are specific to NHS Dentistry. It is a group that will co-ordinate effort and action directed at the Department of Health and the Government, for the benefit of NHS Dentists and our Patients. We have no big London offices, no expense accounts, no highly paid Honorary Secretaries or Chief executives, nor do we have an expensive legal dept., so as you might expect, everything from BAND comes with the usual “at your own risk, no liability accepted” proviso.

Aims
Our first objective First we must modify the new contract as an emergency measure to save NHS Dentistry

Our second objective Next, we must have the contract replaced altogether

BEWARE the NHS Dispute Resolution Process - so far I haven’t come across a single decision that went in the dentist’s favour. Also bear in mind that according to the regs “the determination” by the Sec of state’s representative “shall be binding on the prospective parties to the contract.” There is no further right of appeal or further dispute! You may prefer (as long as you have not opted to be an “NHS body”) to withdraw from the NHS dispute process and contest any disputes by solicitor. BAND hopes to co-ordinate any such actions PLEASE contact BAND immediately with any ongoing or unresolved disputed contract matters


North Somerset PCT apparently relies on NHS Direct for Out-of-Hours cover! Patients have to ravel to Bristol to be seen by an access clinic which is only open during restricted hours.


We want to make NHS Dentistry work for dentists and patients. This may involve non-cooperation, work to rule, even withdrawal of labour, but in a way that dentists and patients are benefited, not made to suffer for the sake of the NHS.


What are Your Aims? BAND is in its early stages and we are anxious to take on board any legitimate objectives of General Dental Practitioners and of Orthodontists working in GDS or PDS, which will improve NHS Dentistry for Dentists and the service to Patients.


What are your needs? If you have concerns which are not being addressed, or if you disagree with our aims, please let us know.