Abstract
Few in dentistry can be unaware of the Prime Minister's pledge made at the September 1999 Labour Party conference in Bournemouth: “and working with the British Dental Association, everyone within the next two years will be able once again to see an NHS dentist just by phoning NHS Direct.” The recent NHS dental plan ‘Modernising NHS Dentistry’1,2 has announced a number of initiatives to work towards this goal, the deadline for which is rapidly approaching. Obviously, this is not going to be possible without some reversal, or at least a slow down, in the move away from the NHS by General Dental Practitioners and there are parts of the plan devoted to this objective. That said, equally it would appear that these may not in themselves be enough to ensure that people can access NHS dental care within a reasonable travelling distance, which leads us to consider the other part of the plan, Dental Access Centres (DACs), which are intended to supplement other services, not replace them. This paper attempts to explain just what they are, presents one particular DAC scheme as an example and discusses the challenges they face in the future.