Survey of National Health Service (NHS) orthodontic practitioners in Wales, UK. Part 2: job satisfaction perceptions of the workforce 2021-2022.

OBJECTIVE: To ascertain the perceptions of the Welsh NHS orthodontic workforce regarding their job satisfaction and work life balance. DESIGN: Descriptive cross-sectional survey. PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING: Clinicians providing NHS orthodontic treatment in Wales. METHODS: An anonymised, email-distributed, electronic, two-part survey (onlinesurveys.ac.uk) of the Welsh NHS orthodontic workforce working within Wales was undertaken. The survey consisted of three sections: (1) demographic information (part 1); (2) respondents' working pattern (part 1); and (3) perceptions of professional job satisfaction and work/life balance (part 2). The responses received were exported into an Excel spreadsheet for descriptive analysis. The free-text comments were collated for each question and subsequently underwent a content analysis to identify any common themes. RESULTS: Part 2 of the survey yielded an overall response rate of 69.6% (n = 78). Over 96% (n = 75) of respondents felt that they had 'made the right career choice, including 100% of orthodontic trainees, orthodontic specialists and orthodontic consultants. Of the respondents, 88.5% (n = 69) said they 'enjoyed going to work', with the remaining being mostly neutral in their opinion. Of the respondents, 79.5% (n = 62) felt they were able to 'provide their patients the optimum care' and 64.1% (n = 50) felt that more demands were being placed upon them by patients and parents. Overall, 52.6% (n = 41) of survey respondents believed it was becoming increasingly difficult to achieve an effective work/life balance, and this was more prevalent among male respondents (61.5%, n = 16) than female respondents (48.1%, n = 25), although this difference was not statistically significant (P >0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Over 96% of respondents felt they have chosen the right career and that flexibility and a good working environment are important to job satisfaction. Respondents felt that there are increasing demands being placed upon them by patients/parents, employers, the Regulators, the Government and Health Boards. This is leading to increased difficulty in achieving a satisfactory work/life balance, especially among male respondents.

Survey of National Health Service (NHS) orthodontic practitioners in Wales, UK. Part 1: working patterns 2021-2022.

OBJECTIVE: To ascertain the working patterns of the NHS orthodontic workforce in Wales and any possible future changes. DESIGN: Descriptive cross-sectional survey. PARTICIPANTS: NHS orthodontic practitioners in Wales. METHODS: An anonymised email distributed an electronic two-part survey of the Welsh NHS orthodontic workforce. The survey consisted of three sections: (1) demographic information; (2) respondents' working pattern (part 1); and (3) perceptions of professional satisfaction (part 2). RESULTS: Part 1 of the survey yielded a 70.5% response rate (n = 79); 65.8% of the respondents were women. Of the respondents, 45.6% (n = 36) worked full time (F/T), 39.2% (n = 31) worked less than F/T and 15.2% (n = 12) worked more than F/T. Of the male respondents, 81.5% (n = 22) worked 10 sessions or more compared to 50% (n = 26) of women. The respondents undertook 508.5 orthodontic clinical sessions per week within Wales; of these sessions, 87.6% (n = 445.5) delivered NHS orthodontic care. Of the respondents, 8.4% (n = 7) were planning to increase their orthodontic clinical time within the next 2 years, 24.1% (n = 19) were planning to decrease it and 20.3% (n = 16) were unsure. One-quarter of respondents indicated that they were planning to stop clinical orthodontic activity within the next 5 years, including 53.3% (n = 8) of DwSIs, 37% (n = 10) of primary care specialists and 13.3% (n = 2) of consultants. The pandemic was an influencing factor for 80% of these clinicians. CONCLUSIONS: Part 1 of the survey suggested that the majority of the orthodontic workforce was female, were working full time or more, and spent most sessions delivering NHS care. One-quarter of respondents were planning to cease undertaking orthodontic activity within the next 5 years.

The COVID-19 experience of orthodontists in the UK.

OBJECTIVE: To understand and compare the perceived impact and ongoing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on orthodontic clinical services in the UK. DESIGN: Descriptive cross-sectional survey. SETTING: Online electronic questionnaire. PARTICIPANTS: Members of the British Orthodontic Society (BOS). METHODS: Electronic questionnaires were circulated between March and June 2021. The UK survey was distributed via emails from the BOS, Orthodontic Managed Clinical Networks and WhatsApp groups. RESULTS: A total of 560 unique responses were received. There were more respondents who were aged over 50 years (52%) then respondents who were aged below 50 years (48%) with the median age range being 50-54 years (20%). The main causes of disruption to clinical practice were felt to be national restrictions (85%), increased cross-infection measures (84%), social distancing (80%) and professional guidance (80%). Respondents felt more negatively in their opinions regarding dentistry's preparedness for the pandemic (5%) and how dentistry coped in the crisis (35%), when compared to orthodontic services specifically (8% and 58%, respectively). The respondents were not confident about the potential beneficial effects of a vaccination programme on orthodontic clinical service provision (21%). Telephone consultations (84%) and video consultations (61%) were the main adaptations used by the respondents during the pandemic. CONCLUSIONS: Respondents felt that COVID-19 will have long-term societal, clinical and professional implications. The majority of our respondents supported the vaccination and weekly testing of the orthodontic team. Respondents felt that during the pandemic there had been a deterioration in care provision and were not optimistic about a vaccination programme restoring services to pre-pandemic levels of activity. During the pandemic, patients in active orthodontic treatment have been prioritised but at the expense of new and review patients, and as services recover respondents were concerned about the difficulty of arranging dental extractions.