£11 million boost for IT in dental hospitals

An extra £11 million will be allocated to dental hospitals across England to fund new IT systems that will support the training of dental students, the Department of Health has announced.

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

As well as training future dental care professionals, NHS dental hospitals and associated dental schools research ways to improve oral and dental health and provide specialist clinical services for patients.

Deputy Chief Dental Officer, Tony Jenner said: ‘This extra funding reinforces the Government's commitment to supporting dental hospitals and expanding the dental workforce.

‘The NHS now has over 4,000 more dentists than it did in 1997 and we have increased the number of undergraduate training places by 25% to ensure we have more dentists in the areas of the country that need them the most."

The £11 million will be divided between each of the 10 trusts that applied for funding.

The trusts will have responsibility for using the money to train dental students in the use of clinical computer programmes that they will use in practice. IT systems may include:
• Core applications under the National Programme for Technology, such as Patient Administration Systems, N3, Choose and Book, Picture Archiving and Communication Systems and access to the NHS Care Record Service
• Clinical dental systems
• Resource management
• Support for the teaching of students

The 10 trusts receiving allocations are:
• South Birmingham PCT
• University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
• Guy's & St Thomas's Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
• King's College Hospital NHS Trust
• Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust
• Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals NHS Trust
• Central Manchester and Manchester Children's University Hospitals NHS Trust
• Barts and The London NHS Trust
• Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
• The Newcastle Upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust



 Posted on : Mon 13th - Oct - 2008