A letter from Public Health England (PHE) to BDA Dental Public Health committee chair Christopher Allen has confirmed that 45 permanent posts and 44 12-month contract posts previously frozen by PHE are now to be recruited. Those recruitments will reduce the inequity in the distribution of England’s CDPH workforce for the immediate year, although the longer-term future of the posts recruited as 12-month contracts remains uncertain.
The recruitments follow much BDA lobbying stressing the importance of ensuring the expertise of CDPHs is available in all areas. The BDA campaign ran during the passage of the Health and Social Care Bill and has continued since it was passed. In May 2013 Allen wrote to Public Health England reiterating the importance of advertising the posts and warning a failure to do so could jeopardise a Government commitment to improve child oral health.
Allen said: “The role of dental public health is absolutely essential to understanding and addressing oral health problems in communities across the UK. One-third of primary care trusts – the local NHS bodies prior to the reorganisation of the NHS architecture in April – did not have access to a CDPH. That absolutely mustn’t have been allowed to continue in the new NHS and we are pleased to see that the BDA has been listened to on this issue.”
“The advertisement and recruitment of these posts need to begin as soon as possible. It is also important their longer-term future is secured and the BDA will continue to lobby for this to happen.”
More work remains to be done however, PHE has acknowledged, with a funding shortfall in excess of £1m needing to be addressed for the 2014-15 year.