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of professional officers is still inadequate to meet the examination and treatment needs
of the Service and will have to be again increased when the provision of new buildings or
conversion of present premises allows expansion. It may well be that the provision of
more mobile caravans, or facilities for dentistry on school premises, will allow more
dental manpower to be used before an expensive building programme can be carried out.
As stated in 1966, the recruitment of suitable full time paedodontists to the Service
is directly related to the image the Service maintains, both locally and nationally. As
conditions improve, there should be no shortage of recruits of the highest calibre for
the full-time professional posts and there already exists an improvement directly due to
the new local image. The situation cannot improve substantially, however, in spite of
anticipated improvements in national scales of pay for Dental Officers, until the
differential which favours the sessional Dental Officer working in two different
authorities is seen to be the factor which precludes the recruitment of the recently
qualified to full-time service.
The need for the incentive of a better career structure for Dental Officers, and the
increased responsibility given to those Dental Officers who have to supervise the work of
a Dental Auxiliary, makes the need for several Senior Dental Officer posts imperative.
Early in 1968, three Dental Auxiliaries will be appointed and will require three fulltime
Dental Officers to supervise them, It should be possible for those supervising
Dental Officers to qualify for Senior Dental Officer grade and they can then also be
given the responsibility for one aspect of routine administration within the Dental
Department,
Once again attention must be drawn to the severe problems of recruitment of Dental
Surgery Assistants, because of their entirely unrealistic national scale of pay. This
scale is particularly bad for the very young girl who has recently left school and who
would in normal circumstances be considered the best recruit for the job. We need a high
calibre recruit and will only attract the right person by being able to offer a
reasonable salary.
PREMISES AND EQUIPMENT
The collective planning which has had to be arranged so that developments can be
agreed between those administering the Service in the Borough, the Dental Adviser and all
those involved in various departments of the Inner London Education Authority, and also
the Principal School Dental Officers of the other Inner London Boroughs, precludes any
dramatic advance However, in spite of frustrations, the wil 1 ing co-operation of the large
number of people involved in planning and administration has resulted in steady progress
in the re-equipment and redecoration programme which achieved fruition towards the latter
part of the year The details of this programme of modernisation are as follows:-
Bethnal Green Clinic
Lyte Street - installation of new dental unit, aspirator and X-ray machine in Surgery
1 and the provision of a completely new Surgery 2 Redecoration throughout and the
provision of modern sink units, dental cabinets, etc.
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