key: cord-0022295-o97fya6v
authors: Hancocks OBE, Stephen
title: Here's a revolutionary idea
date: 2021-10-22
journal: Br Dent J
DOI: 10.1038/s41415-021-3575-x
sha: d612749d857c2271f96d598cdc6702cbd358d660
doc_id: 22295
cord_uid: o97fya6v

nan

I was pleased to be at a recent meeting for the formation of the UK Chapter of the Alliance for a Cavity-Free Future (ACFF); more detail on this to follow in the journal in due course. It was a face-to-face meeting and provided a refreshing opportunity for those involved to meet in person, many for the first time since the start of the pandemic. As such, it genuinely provided proof of the now commonly expressed opinion that while virtual meetings using the internet have many advantages, creativity in group settings is infinitely greater in the real world. The meeting progressed with its agenda which included frequent mentions of the relevance to prevention of DBOH 4 and how central this was to the messages on framing future action against caries and cavities.

It was at this point that a member of the group, a very well-respected, long-time general dental practitioner, posed a question to those assembled. 'To what extent, ' he challenged 'will the future NHS Dental Contract be modelled on DBOH 4?' A mixture of silent eyebrow knitting and sniggers suffused the room. It was one of those moments akin to the 'Emperor's new clothes' when a conundrum so otherwise obviously apparent was at once revealed. The deception made flesh but the answer defied. Surely, the sensible response would be 'politics informed by science' . How is this situation any different from the glitzy choreography of the daily Downing Street briefings on COVID-19? Surely, three lecterns with the Prime Minister, the Chief Dental Officer and the government's chief scientific adviser is the very least to be expected? Hah. I can't help feeling the sense of our combined incredulity that any such action could ever happen. It is, I'm afraid, typical of the duplicity with which we seek to cover the reasoning for our attitudes and actions towards what we know to be the facts but deflect from the consequent difficult decisions. It falls into the 'everyone knows but nobody likes to mention it' category. Everyone knows that after dental school, no one is going to be able to practise in the real world that which they have been taught as the ideal. Everyone knows that there is never going to be any more state money for dentistry and that dentistry is a business as distinct from a service. Everyone accepts how difficult it is to perceive that prevention is ever going to create the level of financial return that treatment provides. But we all pretend that as we can go on pretending for as long as we possibly can, we will.

So, in the foreseeable future, will we carry on publishing the next version of DBOH, and the next, acknowledging how wedded we are to the absolute importance of evidence-based practice and prevention while simultaneously, euphemistically taking every action we can to bend the rules to suit our point of view? DBOH 4 and the next NHS dental contract, science and political expediency -discuss.

The Scientific Basis of Oral Health Education

The BDJ Upfront section includes editorials, letters, news, book reviews and interviews. Please direct your correspondence to the News Editor, Kate Quinlan at k.quinlan@nature.com. Press releases or articles may be edited

' Everyone knows that after dental school, no one is going to be able to practise in the real world that which they have been taught as the ideal' BRITISH DENTAL JOURNAL | VOLUME 231 NO. 8 | OcTObER 22 2021 423 UPFRONT