Chamber and committees

Do they not matter so much?

Do we need to go to a private model?

I understand that but, from the Government’s point of view, it is writing a cheque and at the moment it is for items. If that changes, will the Government have to write a bigger cheque?

Mr McColl, are you speaking to the Government and, if so, what is the Government saying?

Do we know of any country that has a completely state-funded system and very little private dental care?

Is the Government listening to you or only to the BDA or what?

Do you know how much extra it cost the Government to put money into the dental service during Covid?

So you got extra money and you did not see me, because I have not been to the dentist for three years.

Right, I will leave it at that.

I think that we are all on the same theme of reform, so I will stick to that.

I liked the bullet points in your written submission, Dr Bashir, which certainly covers a lot of ground. One of them, right towards the end, states:

“We are not asking for extra money”.

However, all I am hearing so far is that this is going to cost a lot of money. If you go from seeing 40 patients a day to seeing 10, I presume that you need four times as many dentists or other staff, so there has to be a big increase in money, does there not?