Important NHS Scotland Dental Reform Changes - 1st November 2023

Starting November 1, 2023, the NHS is rolling out a new Statement of Dental Remuneration (SDR) that promises to make a big difference in how dentists work.

These changes focus on giving dentists more clinical freedom under a high-trust, low-bureaucracy governance system designed to help dentists and patients.

So, what can you expect?

We will break down these changes and explain how they affect dentists, patients, and healthcare in Scotland. This new SDR hosts a lot of changes so we want to highlight as many of them for you ahead of time.

Key Highlights:

• Re-configuration of all treatment items, including new formatting of item codes. Read more below.
• All treatment items are available to all patient types regardless of registration status.
• All treatment items are available to all patient's ages except where excluded explicitly in the item description.
• The new codes for NHS fillings are simplified, meaning there is now one code for a single surface filling, one for a 2-surface filling and one for 3 or more surfaces. Discover more about this over on our help centre here.
• The orthodontic treatment structures remain, with only a tiny amendment to discretionary fee items.
• The retained Orthodontic codes from previous SDRs will remain using their original 32XX codes.
• Discretionary fees under item 38/39 for general treatment are no longer available. Item 39 is relabelled as a balance fee item.
• Treatment rules, e.g., time-barred items, are restricted to only items in the new SDR; there is no reference to historical items.
• Rules relating to treatment available on specific teeth will remain as is currently e.g. where a tooth has been extracted, we will validate that other treatments cannot be claimed.
• Registration payments will be based on a single rate and no longer on age or when the patient last attended.
• The prior approval process will remain, but the Prior Approval limit has been raised to £600.
• The patient charging model will remain as a percentage of the Item feed, with the patient charge cap remaining at £384.

What does this mean in Dentally?

The available NHS treatment codes will be updated to include the new codes that have been added to the SDR.

All treatment codes available on the previous SDR will remain in place on plans started on or before 1/11/2023. As before, with previous SDR changes, any codes no longer appropriate for the SDR in effect will be indicated by the red error symbol and not included in the NHS claim.

The new SDR codes comprise a new numbering system with a letter prefix to the new codes. These are collated in groups based on the services provided:

When it comes to charting these codes in Dentally, all the new SDR codes will be added to a new Treatment Category labelled "NHS DENTAL REFORM". These codes can be added or moved to other categories as individual users see fit.

All pre-existing SDR codes will remain active in Dentally so you can easily clear open courses of treatment. Where practices no longer require these previous SDR codes, we recommend marking them Inactive in your Treatment Settings.

If you need help understanding these changes, the full SDR is available on the Scottish Dental website here.

You can always reach out to Ellie and the support team via Live Chat in Dentally with any questions you may have.