Dental working patterns survey 2018/19 and 2019/20 guidance notes for Northern Ireland

The address given on the survey letter has been provided by the Northern Ireland Business Services Organisation based on your Health Service dental activity in 2018/19. Please do not worry if it is out of date.

For the purposes of this survey primary care dentistry in Northern Ireland is defined as primary care dental treatment performed by dentists holding a Dental List DS number or working as an assistant under another DS number. Such treatment may be performed in high street dental practices under General Dental Services (GDS) regulations; in dental practices under pilot personal dental services directions; or under specific salaried dental service arrangements with the Health and Social Care Board (HSCB). Primary care dentistry consists of health service and private work and can occur in more than one practice.

Please note that primary care dentistry includes time spent on relevant non-clinical work (which can include administrative and management duties) and can also involve orthodontic work, domiciliary care or dentistry performed on referral.

It does not include secondary care, time spent working for a post-graduate deanery or in dental school.

Please include the number of months you worked as a primary care dentist (as defined above); during these months you may have taken holidays,or performed secondary dental care as well. Please note that any extended period of continuous absence of one month or more (e.g. maternity/sickness leave) should be excluded.

If you were working in a primary care dental practice for 12 months, and also working in a hospital part time for part of the year, you would mark down 12 months in the box provided.

If you worked only 2 days per week as a primary care dentist, but did so for the entire year, you would mark down 12 months in the box provided.

For the purpose of answering this survey, clinical work is defined as all face-to-face contact with patients (including preventative care).

Please only include annual leave as time away from dentistry; this does not include time away from dentistry due to extenuating circumstances (such as sickness, maternity leave, compassionate reasons etc.), nor does it include time away for continuing professional development (CPD).

Please see Annex A for detailed descriptions of each dental type (health service working arrangement).

Example A

The dentist is an owner of one dental practice, has an arrangement with the Health and Social Care Board (HSCB), and therefore holds a DS number, and provides general dental services (GDS) within the practice. This dentist would answer Question 6/14 as below:

Example B

The dentist is an owner of one dental practice, has an arrangement with the Health and Social Care Board (HSCB), and therefore holds a DS number, and provides general dental services (GDS) within the practice. This dentist would answer Question 6/14 as below:

Example C

The dentist works for their own limited company or limited liability partnership. In EITHER case, the company/partnership has an associate arrangement with a practice owner and performs dentistry on their behalf (the dentist also has an arrangement with the HSCB to provide general dental services). This dentist would answer Question 6/14 as below:

Practice owner/director/partner dentists who hold an arrangement or arrangements with a Health and Social Care Board (HSCB), and therefore have a DS number, can choose to run their businesses under a number of different arrangements.

For each contract that you hold where you are the practice owner/director/partner, please indicate the business arrangement in the table provided.

Associated – Incorporated dentists work for their own body corporate which is responsible for performing dentistry of another practice owner/director/partner or other limited company, hold a DS number, and also perform primary care dental services. Please indicate the business arrangement (Limited Company or Limited Liability Partnership) in the table provided.

Example A

A dentist does not personally hold a contract with the HSCB but is an owner/director/ partner of a limited company, and this limited company holds a contract with a HSCB. This dentist would answer question 7/15 as below:

Example B

A dentist holds a total of three contracts with HSCBs. For two of these contracts, the dentist is involved in limited liability partnerships; for the other the dentist is a sole trader but has two other dentists performing some of the dental activity included in that particular contract. This dentist would answer question 7/15 as shown below. Please note, if the dentist switched business arrangements within the year, they would answer in the same way.

Example C

A dentist holds one contract with the HSCB and is the owner of one dental practice. The dentist is the sole provider of dental services in this practice. This dentist would answer question 7/15 as below:

In Northern Ireland, dentists working under General Dental Services (GDS) come to an arrangement with the Health and Social Care Board (HSCB) to provide GDS. Only dentists can have an arrangement (termed a contract here) to provide GDS. Dentists performing pilot Personal Dental Services (PDS), do so under an agreement which the pilot PDS provider has with the HSC Board to provide pilot PDS. A wider list of providers, including corporate bodies, can have an agreement to provide pilot PDS.

Please see Annex A for detailed descriptions of each business arrangement.