ANNEX A:: OUTLINE OF THE EXISTING LAW RELATING TO THE NHS Part 2 System: family health services Dentists
495.The provision for dentists (section 35 of the 1977 Act) is in very similar terms to that for doctors in section 29, although it will be noted that the duty upon the PCT or HA is subtly different. In the case of doctors, the PCT or HA­ must arrange for suffi­cient GMS to be provided for everybody in the area who wishes to take advantage of the arrange­ments. In the case of dentists this duty is not quite the same: the duty is not to arrange the provision of GDS for every­body in the area who wishes to have GDS, but rather to arrange with dentists in the area that any person for whom those dentists have under­taken to pro­vide GDS receive the promised GDS. How­ever, the systems are by no means dissimi­lar: there exists a dental list of GDPs who under­take to provide GDS, there is a system of dental vocational train­ing (although it has been introduced by regula­tions and not by primary legislation); the relation­ship between the HA and the GDP is (usually) again a statutory one between a HA and an indepen­dent pro­fessional. There is provision for the employ­ment of salaried dentists at health centres: these dentists are employed by the PCT or HA, and repre­sent one of the rare occa­sions when it is the PCT or HA itself which provides the services in ques­tion via its employees.