Scandal as dentists in Scotland paid to treat dead patients
It has emerged that some Scottish dentists have been paid for treating patients who have died or moved to a different practice.
An urgent review of the dental register has revealed that the Scottish NHS boards have paid for at least 150,000 patients who have either passed away or moved to different dental practices. The investigation is ongoing and it is not yet known how much the blunder has cost the NHS.
Dentists in Scotland receive a payment of £4.96 per month for each patient on their register and it appears that millions of pounds have been wasted paying for patients who have moved on and are being treated in other practices and the deceased. The blunder means that it is possible that the NHS have been paying two or more surgeries for the same patient.
Opposition parties have called for an urgent investigation into how such a serious blunder could have occurred; ministers said the amount of wasted money was “outrageous” and are demanding an explanation from the previous government.
The problem is thought to have happened because there is currently no system of notifying the NHS when a patient dies or moves away from the practice. Concerns were eventually voiced by the British Dental Association, who criticised the system of lifelong registration because it prevented dentists from removing patients from their register even if they never attended the surgery.
The Scottish government last night said that they had no idea how long the ‘extra’ patients had been in the register and therefore could not comment on how much money the blunder was likely to have cost the NHS. A spokesman from the government said that there would now be an urgent review into the register system and the Practitioners Services Division are working to tighten up the system to prevent a similar incident occurring in the future.
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