Dental therapists say plans no threat to patient safety

By MARTIN JOHNSTON health reporter

Public safety would be maintained if dental therapists were allowed to practise without a dentist's supervision, says Dental Therapists Association president Vicki Kershaw.

Mrs Kershaw was responding yesterday to dentists' fears that the risk of harm to patients would rise if the supervision was scrapped.

The Dental Council is writing a scope of practice for the therapists, and has proposed that the requirement for a dentist's oversight end in September.

It suggests therapists, formerly referred to as dental nurses, be allowed to treat adults in a team including a dentist and children and adolescents independently. It is considering temporarily preventing therapists from working in the private sector.

Mrs Kershaw said that under the new legislation therapists would have to undertake continuing professional education. The association also wanted the existing system of therapists being regularly audited by senior therapists or dentists to continue.

With these measures, safety would be maintained, Mrs Kershaw said.

Most of New Zealand's about 600 therapists are employed in district health board school dental services, although a few treat adults.

Dr David Crum, executive director of the Dental Association, representing dentists, said giving therapists independence would subject school dental service patients to a second-class system and increase the risk of mistakes.

The concerns were not financial, he said. Only a few therapists would set up private practices and fees would be similar to those of dentists as they would face the same costs.

Paediatric dentist Dr Geoff Lingard oversees the Nelson-Marlborough District Health Board's 22 therapists and is in regular contact with them. He speaks with at least one of them every day.

These chats covered a range of dental topics, he said, such as x-ray interpretation, patients' medical conditions, potential reactions between local anaesthetics and other drugs a patient might be taking.

Therapists' independence might be appropriate in future once the two training courses were accredited and more therapists had graduated from three-year programmes - but not yet.

Pamela Clark, a therapist in Northland, said doing simple treatment herself would make financial sense for a needy population.