With the new contract coming in a few years time, there is an emphasis on the skills mix and expanding use of Dental Care Professionals (DCPs) in the provision of dental care. This means that as dentists we need to be able to work within a multidisciiplinary team, to provide care for our patients. This may be something that younger dentists are more accustomed to, as many of the dental schools teach this approach to dental care.

The changing role of DCPs, make it possible for dentists to allocate our clinical time more effectively, meeting the individual needs of the patient, and work efficiently as a team. The multidisciplinary to health care is now well established in primary and secondary medical services, and dental care should be no exception.

Delegating some care to therapists will allow dentists to see more patients which can only be a good thing, don't you think? DCPs delivering their own fair share of UDAs (or whatever the new unit of renumeration will be) opens up our appointment books for the more complicated care, and should reduce waiting times for patients.

There is a need to increase public awareness of what therapists do, and what their scope of practice is. How many of our

patients know that therapists can provide simple restorative care? Or how would they react to you setting their interim care appointments with the practice therapist? Could we as young dentists be more informed to explain these different scopes of practice to our patients, are we happy to work together in a team to change the conventional approach of the NICE guidelines to Dental Recall? As a profession, we need to have a conversation and discuss the emerging trends of dental care delivery.

I look forward to your comments.

To read more about the concerns of young dentists please see my blog: www.atoothgerm.blogspot.co.uk