Government announces funding boost for dental hospitals

The Department of Health has announced the allocation of 11 million pounds to dental hospitals across England for the development of new IT systems.

It said these solutions will be used to support the training of dental students, while the funding will be split between each of the ten trusts who provided an application.

Funding may be used for core applications such as patient administration and picture archiving and communications.

It may also be used on clinical dental systems, support for student teaching and resource management.

The funding is part of a joint initiative from NHS Connecting for Health, the Dental IT programme board and the Department of Health.

In addition to the training of future dentists and other dental care professionals, the government noted NHS dental hospitals and associated schools are also used to research methods to improve oral health and provide specialist clinical services.

Tony Jenner, deputy chief dental officer, said: “This extra funding reinforces the government’s commitment to supporting dental hospitals and expanding the dental workforce.”

He added the number of undergraduate training places has increased by 25 per cent since 1997, while the NHS has over 4,000 more dentists.

In March 2008, figures from the Information Centre for Health and Social Care revealed a wide variation between the amount of money spent by NHS authorities on dental care across England.