personal dental services
personal dental services
Services in the UK offering patients personalised dental care which is equivalent to that provided by General Dental Practitioners within the Family Health Services, but within a more flexible framework of local commissioning.Primary care trusts (PCTs) can contract with practitioners or other providers to provide patient services, but are free to negotiate and set contract terms which best suit local circumstances and priorities. Where services have converted from GDS contracts, a transfer is made on an annual basis from the General Dental Services non-discretionary budget and allocated to the individual PCT's discretionary budget. PCTs can also commit other funding from their HCHS discretionary allocations or integrate more specialised elements of former Community Dental Services into PDS schemes. Gross expenditure represents the total cost of the service; net expenditure represents the proportion of total costs met by the NHS after taking into account the income from dental charges collected from patients.