Recruitment and Practice of Dental Therapists – A report from the Technical Advisory Group

Recruitment and Practice of Dental Therapists – A report from the Technical Advisory Group

Date of publication: June 2004
Submissions closed 25 August 2004

HP 3857

New Zealand has had a long history of providing school dental services to children and adolescents.

Since the early 1990s, however, there have been significant changes to the education and training of dental therapists and their recruitment and retention within the public dental service.

Changes to the legislation will allow dental therapists to provide services to patients through both public and private dental clinics. This brings with it the need for a broader range of employing agencies to understand and appreciate the role and relationship of dental therapy to other aspects of dental practice. It requires also clear professional career outcomes for current dental therapists and young New Zealanders considering careers in this area of dentistry.

The novelty of these changes requires broad stakeholder and consumer agreements to the educational and philosophical aspects of dental therapy which are in keeping with the dental service needs and demands envisaged by the New Zealand community from the changing dental workforce mix.

This Report, by a specially constituted Technical Advisory Group, provides a series of Recommendations to the Ministry of Health and other agencies, with respect to the scope of practice of dental therapy, educational opportunities for young New Zealanders and the future opportunities for dental therapy practice in New Zealand.

Submissions
Submissions from interested parties on the Recommendations of the Report are due by 5 pm on Wednesday 25 August 2004.

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