The difference between team and staff may seem small but is probably significant. Team usually refers to the ‘nice’ things like collaboration, cooperation and patient care while staff tends to include the trickier items like leave, time-keeping, pensions and the like.
So, I am guessing that the latest plans from the NHS’s new chief executive, Simon Stevens to introduce incentives for overweight staff to slim down and set an example to patients will, if applied to dentistry, be firmly in the staff section.
The idea is in line with other thinking to set a good example in the obesity crisis and needs to be considered as well as hospital food and that many hospital shops and vending machines fail to promote healthy choices. However, quite how it might translate into dental team initiatives remains to be seen. Should we have an ideal weight chart for each dental team role I wonder based not only on personal demographics but also on dimensions of surgery, space between dental chair and cabinetry as well as weight-bearing capacity of operating stools? Watch this, er, space.
Congestion charge
The current furore over the rise in complaints not only about dentists and dentistry but about doctors, solicitors, social workers and many other professions and groups has of course been given specific focus by the GDC’s proposed rise in the annual retention fee.
It seems as if everything is increasing except, perhaps somewhat surprisingly, employment tribunal cases. Why so, one wonders? Could it be to do with the government-introduced fees of up to £1,200 to access the tribunal system? A sharp fall in the number of tribunal claims between October 2013 and March 2014 represented a 73 per cent drop on the same period the previous year.
While this might have led to some potential injustice because claimants could not afford to enter the system, one cannot help but wonder how many malicious or vexatious claims have also been prevented. Suppose regulatory bodies introduced a sort of ‘pay a deposit but money-back if you win’ system would that lead to a similar drop in complaints? Tantalising.
Doctor, I need antibiotics
The growing number of voices, scientific, health and now political warning about the rise in antibiotic resistant organisms makes it feel as if some of us at least are starting to get the message of the potential seriousness of the problem.
In dentistry we prescribe relatively few antibiotics and recent papers, articles and news items have further encouraged us to restrict our use of these medicines to essential cases only. It was rather alarming then to read the study in the Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy of 537 GP practices between 1999 and 2011 showing a rise from 36 per cent to 51 per cent of patients presenting with coughs and colds who were prescribed antibiotics.
Clearly there is a lot of work to do here in medical as well as public education. Is this an area where we can help by influencing our patients’ understanding and demands?