Aging on the prostetus workforce the average age of the prostetus workforce is going up. You can see its risen from 2000 to nearly over 50 and most people in the room, looking around a little bit , there’s quite a few of you that are aged over 40 which is great to see but the hat is basically a bulge in the distribution , this is the dominant group . This is the relatively small group at a younger age and that actually quite different as we will see in moment from dentistry there is a bulge at the end. The prostetus as a whole is aging and that has questions we can ask about replacement.
The dominant group we have in the 40 – 49 year old grow here how long did you want to keep working that you might want to ponder because those who are coming after you are relatively small not he number at the moment and that’s why the ability to meet this demand i think is going to be a huge challenge. Just to show you how different it is for dentist you can see there is a very rage proportion of dentist who are age less than 30 and that’s been the outflow all the increase in dental programs in the country . The workforce is not much better balance between these less than 30 and those age over 60. Just to go back you can see the distribution is all skewed over one side so the question of a replacement is going to be a big question because this group over here are pretty small in number in real terms.
I’m going to skip of the pattern of work and try to draw all these comments together for you. What’s have we sort of discovered through this data. What you can see is that there is a burdening gaining community , particularly in elderly females, they’re ore medically compromised woos the complexity of patients are riding , there are more daisies and tooth loss in rural remote, indigenous , low SES, low education parts of the community and because of that it here Isa Mel distribution towards card holders and people who are lesslikieleiiy to have dental insurance and who will delay care and postpone because it’s too expensive . The complexity of care will also mean that there is going to be a greater need for things like implant stabilisation because of the driving effects of things like resorbtion. We’re going to then have a great need, that’s that projected demand d for more removal partial dentures as well as fairly consistent demand for complete dentures.
This things are going to be the drivers. Having said that let me just return to work mix. On average in a typical week in austral is ait has been estimated that four dentures represent about one third of the work that is done and repairs the full dentures represent about the work which is done in practise, partials about 1/4 and partials repair abbot another 1/5. This is averaging all prostetus across all sectors in Australia in 2008, if you thinkm abotu the divers for those thinsg in the futuree the nuber of edentalist will drop by only 10 %. Theme number of partially edentalist is actually rising and I’m showing you the demand projections yet the prostetus workforce is gaining and the replacement dynamic is small and rather more feminise. To me there is a gap between the demand and the supply side. I will thinking it is there is definitely some space to think about what could be done into the future.
The [Inaudible] workforce is not growing in numerical terms at the same rate as other groups. Proportionally it’s shrinking, the ratios seems matched to other demans but us sort of a razor blade edge and the team competition in changing. I think this i a really water shed moment for dental prostetus to think about what should out profession look like in the future given that these are the demand for care which are coming down the pipeline more of the same and if you look at the UK situation they need to increase by 3 or 4 fold so they have massive shortage because again they didn’t plan workforce hobby as well as we have done either well or by accident in Australia . I think they are the kind of the wide angel’s shots of the profession that you could look at.
To finish what does that mean for the future. well treating more difficult cases that means more stuff like you are doing at this conference , more CPD , more learning , more sharing information with other groups , particularly learning more about medical compromise and comorbidity .A great emphasis in mainitnting real health because more people are going to be holding more complexes dentitions in the future and of course a greater focus on things that are related to dental implant care . I guess those areas to me seem to be the learning needs for the future and finally generational change. I can see the small groups of prostetus coming through are going to be faced with an enormous workforce challenge and i think the profession at large could be and perhaps should be discussing some ways that it can think about planning for the future. Think those who have sort of given you the dooms day message don have the analysis form the numbers i have shown you today. I think the numbers speak for themselves pretty clearly. We need more, we need more to do the services that are going to be demanded but it is where those patients are who they are that within k is actually the tricky bit.
I haven’t shown a lot of information , i would be certainly happy to share those because its allay in the public domain to share it with so if you want to copy of the personation then certainly email e me or perhaps the association who i will provide it to as well. Thanks you very much it’s been a pleasure talking to you u this afternoon.
1: We’ll take some questions from the floor. We’ll take two questions form the floor. We just need to keep in task for the next speaker.
Audience: Just quickly the summary of what you just told us that the workforce on a whole is not growing and we all want to work less. The client base or the potential workforce generally increasing particularly months the poorer and the people who are less well to main their teeth so the demands time wise against us are increasing , we want to do less, the sort of people we are looking to deal with are lower socioeconomics and we have the least funds available yet of you look ta the contrast of this morning’s lecture was about doing dentistry as expensively as possible both time wise and dollar cosies. The association that is pushing the industry has harassed to be spending time here rather than making teeth for people and you are saying also … how do you marry that up , can you speak to the contradiction there in .
LW: I don’t think there is actually a contradistinction therein. I think there are bunch of priorities that are inter meshed. If you want to be an inefficient t quality provider then you need to do [Inaudible] as a responsibility so i see that as an investment in quality and i think most people will argue that there is some evidence that will support that’s that’s actually the cases.
My second point is that i guess the argument that you can draw again taking the points form Andrew’s presentation is that this regroup of the population is mostly in the card holder group and most of the prostetus and the private. The question is actually about funding this per people to be treated in your precise sent it. That what it’s about. It’s about whether you want it to call it dental care but some realistic funding model for the SES patient with the need to be seen in the private sector setting because n if you got that you’ve actually git many elements of what is could call the unifying solution.
Audience: Then you’ve got full up and lower at $202 government funded plus a paper load witch adds hours to the actually time in wish to do it and if we were to take primary impression that takes as long as we too this morning registration which I guess we will find out about later on how on earth do you see us ever getting back into a surplus in 2013?
LW: One of the struggled for government has been proving a fee which the government feels is fair. They don’t want the fee to be so high that people might want to over service. So its the ebakcne between trust and control an i think once that balance is struck apporiotately and the givemrntent sort of at the federal level is looking for solutions because they know that dental needs are not evenly idstributedin the community , they know they sit in certain pockets so the question is do you expand the public convector too proved those care or do you allow those patients to be sent to the private sector at a supportable rate . I think that’s the limit for the government and that’s what they have been looking at several different solutions that might actually involve doing both of those things. I think in reality you have to probably do both some private sector care which is essentially u outsources as well as some true public csecortr care. I agree with you that the finding received for it is a struggle. Those patients occupy a significant chunk of the practise I work in and that’s a struggle for me in some ways, it’s a bit of an sdihormony for the patient. I sort of work on the [Inaudible] and roundabout but i agree it’s an increase challenge because there is more regulation , more compliance , more paper work and so on .
I think when we have discussion with government it’s our opportunity to a reticulate those costa and those impacts , its not just saying give us an extra 10 or 15 % there are the reasons for it because these ram the extra compliance cost that we had to carry . Here are the swings and found about that’s why I think it’s important for the association to make representations to movement met about hate are fair effective solution because the government has to do something to help people out for dentistry for people in Australia. They have told that to me, it’s not great secret. They have to do something. It’s up to us to give them effective solutions and those things will involve them spending some money but that’s one reason why we all pay taxes [;laughs] .
1: I think Laurie was in charge of the federal budget for dental we would probably all be in much better place but i really want to than Laurie for sharing his knowedleing and all those sstatyiitrsitcs. We all think we know what the idea is or what’s actually happening out there but he’s giving you food for thought and i want to wince again thank him form h association for coming in i and delivering us today .
