A group of MPs from the South West have voiced their concerns about the lack of access to NHS dentistry in their constituencies, and urged the Government to take action.

[Including Ben Bradshaw and Richard Foord]

Lewis Clarke www.devonlive.com

The debate, which took place on Tuesday, January 9, was led by Wes Streeting, Labour MP for Ilford North, who said that NHS dentistry was in a “crisis” and that many people were resorting to “DIY dentistry” or attending A&E for urgent care.

He said: “This House recognises that NHS dentistry is in crisis. Eight in ten dentists in England not taking on new NHS patients and vast parts of the country considered so-called dental deserts, where no dentists are available; regrets that this has led to people resorting to DIY dentistry or attending A&E to access urgent care; is concerned that tooth decay is the most common reason children aged six to 10 are admitted to hospital; and therefore calls on the Government to provide an extra 700,000 urgent appointments a year, introduce an incentive scheme to recruit new dentists to the areas most in need and a targeted supervised toothbrushing scheme for three to five year-olds to promote good oral health and reform the dental contract to rebuild the service in the long-run.”

He added: “Tooth decay is now the number one reason why children aged six to 10 end up in hospital. We face the moral outrage of one in 10 Brits saying that they have been forced to attempt dentistry themselves because the NHS was not there for them when they needed it. This is Dickensian—DIY dentistry in 21st-century Britain. Is there any greater example of the decline that this country has been subjected to under the Conservatives?”

The debate was attended by MPs from different parties and regions, who shared their experiences and views on the state of NHS dentistry in their areas.

Ben Bradshaw, Labour MP for Exeter, said: “NHS dentists are performing only 75% of the procedures they are contracted to do? In Devon and Somerset, where the situation is the worst in the country, it is only 26.5% and 30%. Not only have this Government delivered an NHS desert in Devon and Somerset, but they are wasting masses of public money.”

Derek Thomas, Conservative MP for St Ives, said: “The Secretary of State’s predecessor said it was a priority to increase the number of dentists in specific parts of the country, and mentioned the south-west in particular. We are seeing some early green shoots appear. None the less, people in the south-west and Cornwall are struggling to get access to a dentist. I still receive weekly emails from constituents who are not getting the treatment that they need, or who are spending their time and money travelling to NHS practices in Manchester or London, or even abroad, to pay for private care. I have witnessed dental practices giving up NHS contracts, or vastly reducing NHS treatment, forcing some people to fully fund their own care and others, who cannot afford that, to go without treatment. I have raised this issue with the Health Secretary in the Chamber quite recently.”

He continued: “When I spoke to people in dental practices, they said they were as frustrated as I am. They have a contract with the NHS to provide thousands of units of dental activity, but the funding allocation is clawed back by the NHS if they cannot deliver those units. They cannot deliver the units, as we have heard already, because the value is too low to attract the staff that they need. Last year, a practice that I was working with paid more than £132,000 in clawbacks to our integrated care board. That is enough funding to treat 1,600 patients.”

Anthony Magnall, Conservative MP for Totnes, spoke about what was happening in Devon. He said: “We have 17,000 more UDAs, which is welcome. We have a dental care stabilisation system. We have 406 extra appointments per week, which can be found through contacting 111. We have one of the finest dental training schools in the form of the Peninsula Dental School, located just outside Plymouth. It is working to help address the need and to support the Government in helping areas across the country. It is looking to help ensure that its trainees remain within the area after their training, to make the NHS as flexible as possible to the needs of those who need to use it.”

He added: “We must have reform. Many of us on the Conservative Back Benches agree that we must have the reforms that have been promised before, because they are the hook that we can hang our hat on, and they will be the solution. If the Minister could look at the short-term solutions I have proposed and give a response, that would be welcome not just in my part of the country, but all across the country.”

Selaine Saxby, Conservative MP for North Devon, spoke of a constituent who was told they had to go to Exeter to get an appointment.

She said: “Exeter, which is the nearest city to my constituency, is over 50 miles away for most North Devon residents. Even private practices in North Devon are unable to take on the volume of patients in some parts of my constituency. I have parents writing weekly to ask what to do when their appointments are cancelled because dentists are handing back their NHS contracts. And because residents in North Devon are unable to get check-ups, by the time they are seen they have extensive dental needs costing hundreds, if not thousands, of pounds. Calling us a dental desert is no help at all. Given the structure of dentistry, dentists are not going to want to deal with the oral backlog each unseen mouth potentially holds.”

She continued: “I welcome the new dentistry Minister to her role, and thank her for her immediate engagement on this issue. I very much hope that her experience will ensure that the Government’s plan to further recover and reform NHS dentistry is expedited because, frankly, the good people of North Devon have waited long enough to see a dentist.”

Richard Foord, MP for Tiverton & Honiton, said: “A 75-year-old and his wife who live in Tiverton told me that they were contacted by their dentist, who said that they were not seeing NHS patients any more. They called a further 20 dental practices and were told by several receptionists that no NHS appointments were available in Devon at all.”

The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Victoria Atkins, responded to the debate and said that she was determined to fix the issues and the disparities in NHS dentistry. She said: “We are reforming our NHS and social care system to make it faster, simpler and fairer. Dentistry is a vital part of our NHS and improving dentistry is one of my top priorities. The hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) represents a deeply urban seat, so I am pleased that he has presented me with an excuse to boast about the fact that I represent, and am very proud to represent, a rural and coastal constituency. That is why fairness is one of my three priorities for our NHS. I know the challenges that rural and coastal communities face when it comes to accessing an NHS dentist appointment, and the disparities in health that we see between rural and coastal communities and city centres. I will come to some statistics in a moment.”

She continued: “I am determined to fix these issues, and the other problems facing NHS dentistry, so that anyone who needs to can always see an NHS dentist, no matter where they live. Indeed, one of my very first acts as Secretary of State was to respond to the Health and Social Care Committee’s recommendations on dentistry. We agreed to the majority of those recommendations, and we stand firmly behind the ambition that NHS dentistry should be accessible and available to all who need it.”

She acknowledged that the pandemic had placed a heavy burden on NHS dentistry and said: “The whole House understands that the pandemic placed a long-lasting and heavy burden on NHS dentistry.”

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Dame Andrea Leadsom, said that the Government was working on both short-term and long-term solutions for the recovery and reform of NHS dentistry. She said: “I want to set out some of the recovery that is already under way—not enough by any means, but good progress, and not the failure that Labour wants to portray it as. It is a good recovery from a disastrous situation during coronavirus >covid. In 2022-23, 6.1 million more courses of treatment have been delivered than in 2021-22, and seven out of 10 patients have had a good overall experience of dental services, according to surveys. More than 18 million adults were seen by an NHS dentist in the 24 months to June 2023, which was an increase of 10% on the previous year. Some 6.4 million children were seen by an NHS dentist in the 12 months up to 30 June, which was an increase of 800,000 compared with the previous year. Nearly 1,400 more NHS dentists were available in 2022-23 than in 2010-11.”

She added: “Of course, in our long-term workforce plan we announced a 40% increase to dentistry training places—that is incredibly important. I pay tribute to all our NHS staff, who continue to work tirelessly to deliver vital dental care to those who need it the most. Dental staff deserve our support, which is why we are working flat out on both short and long-term solutions for the recovery and reform of NHS dentistry.”

She said that money alone would not solve the backlog and the access issues and said: “we are investing £3 billion a year in dentistry, and we need to ensure that every penny is spent properly and delivers the best results. However, the honest truth is that to recover from covid, during which hardly anyone saw a dentist, whether private or NHS, money will not be the silver bullet—a quick funding fix cannot solve all of the backlog and deliver on our ambition that everyone who needs an NHS dentist should be able to access one. As such, we are working on both short-term recovery and long-term system reform, supported by the profession. We will be fixing some of the fundamental flaws in patient access and health inequalities that have been highlighted and exacerbated by the pandemic, many of which have been raised in the Chamber today. We have made good progress on dentistry, particularly through the 2022 reforms, and can be proud of the improvements achieved to date. Again, I sincerely thank all dental staff for their hard work and commitment to recovery.”

She said that she was eager to reveal more about the dentistry recovery plan and said: “Finally, having been on the receiving end of ‘in due course’ for many years myself, colleagues will realise that I am chomping at the bit to reveal more about our dentistry recovery plan. I need to ask them all to be patient just a little while longer, but I will change the line about when to expect it from ‘shortly’ to ‘very shortly’.”

[This vote was pulled because of the emergency debate on the Post Office Horizon scandal. It is likely to be rescheduled in a couple of weeks time]

This week, Parliament is voting on the Conservative Government’s new push to expand oil and gas extraction from the North Sea.

Richard Foord, MP for Tiverton & Honiton www.midweekherald.co.uk

This is a retrograde step, which has been attacked by experts, but also by several of the more sensible Tory MPs. We have already seen former COP26 President Alok Sharma come out against the move, and environmental heavyweight Chris Skidmore has triggered a by-election in protest at the plans.

It is incompatible to talk about tackling climate change, while also moving to issue new oil and gas licences every year. It would do nothing at all to reduce energy prices here in the UK, because 80 per cent of the oil and gas extracted would be sold overseas.

It would do nothing at all to increase the UK’s energy security, because we would not import any less oil and gas from overseas. All it would mean is that super-rich oil and gas giants get to drill for more polluting fossil fuels and sell them around the world. For example, Russian energy giant Gazprom made £39m from extracting gas in the North Sea last year – including in UK waters – and returned some of the profits to fund Russia’s barbaric war in Ukraine.

This is the exact opposite of what we need to be doing. Climate change presents a threat, but also an opportunity – an opportunity to pioneer the economy of the future. Investing in renewables not only produces more homegrown, cleaner, cheaper energy. It also creates a new wave of well-paid jobs that will last for decades and will support British innovation. You need look no further than renewable energy research at the University of Exeter to see that great British ideas exist – if only the Government would get behind them.

Back in 1911, the young Winston Churchill became First Lord of the Admiralty in a Liberal Government. Churchill took the fateful decision to shift the Royal Navy away from coal-powered ships. He embraced new oil-powered vessels, despite coal being plentiful here at home, whilst oil had to be imported. But Churchill didn’t see this as negative; he embraced innovation and new technology, rather than clinging on to the old. The equivalent today is seeking to lead the race to renewables, rather than clinging on in fear to the fuel of the last century.

I will be voting against this reckless Bill. Conservative Party managers need to stop seeking to appeal to the climate change sceptics on their benches and take the serious, long-term decisions that will prepare the UK to embrace the future – just as this great country has done in the past. I hope MPs from all parties will do the right thing for our planet, our children and our grandchildren.

Still featuring in the National News. – Owl

Swimmers say they feel “frustrated” and “anxious” after being warned to avoid their local beach following an incident that saw up to 240 tankers of sewage per day being dumped at an overflowing pumping station nearby.

Lucie Heath, David Parsley inews.co.uk

One swimming group said there had been a notable decline in the number of people attending its weekly sessions, as locals fear that millions of litres of raw sewage may have been pumped into the water at the popular Devon beach resort.

Water companies are permitted to spill sewage into beaches, lakes and rivers during times of exceptional rainfall to prevent their pipe networks from becoming overwhelmed and sewage backing up into peoples homes.

But locals in Exmouth say that they are being forced to contend with this issue more than most, as South West Water regularly transports sewage from other parts of Devon to the town.

The issue has come to a head over the past few weeks after two major pipe bursts resulted in even more sewage being dumped in the seaside town.

On Friday i revealed that up to 240 tankers per day of sewage had been transported to a pumping station in town, with some of the waste overflowing into the sea.

South West Water publishes real-time data showing when sewage is spilling from one of its pumping stations. The data show waste has overflowed from its infrastructure in Exmouth for several days at a time since New Year.

On Saturday, the Environment Agency warned bathers against going into the sea at Exmouth due to sewage pollution. The warning remained in place until Monday.

Sewage has overflowed from hundreds of points in Britain’s network over the past week as Storm Henk brought heavy rainfall, but locals fear the situation in Exmouth has worsened due to the amount of waste being transported to the town.

Nicola Birtchnell, who started a weekly women’s swim group during the pandemic, said many of the group’s members have been avoiding the sea since the New Year.

“We’ve definitely had a reduced turnout of members coming to swim. So when we may have had maybe 40 at this time of year, we’ve only had 10,” she said.

Ms Birtchnell said there have not been reports of anyone getting sick after going into the water, but said many of the women are still “more apprehensive understandably”.

“It’s a big shame, especially, as it’s something that a lot of women look forward to every Sunday,” she said.

“It’s really sad. It should be something really lovely to do. It’s a great beach and people aren’t experiencing the health benefits which they could be doing,” she said.

One member of the swimming group, Mary Culhane, told i she has avoided swimming for the past two weeks because of the sewage spills.

She started swimming during the pandemic for “mental health” reasons, but said the “anxiety” of getting ill while in the water “negates the effect of doing it”.

“I feel really frustrated. I’m thinking I’m paying South West Water to keep my water clean and to treat the effluent properly,” she said.

While some swimmers have avoided the water, campaigners have raised concerns that not enough is being done to make locals aware of the sewage pollution.

South West Water publishes real-time information on its website that shows when beaches are impacted by sewage spills and the Environment Agency also published its warning on its website and on social media.

But locals say signs should be put up at the beach to warn locals of the risk.

“When the Environment Agency were notified, what did they do about telling people?” said local campaigner Andy Tyerman.

“I went down to the beach yesterday and talked to a few dog walkers and people who were on the beach. Very few were aware of it, if any, and most didn’t realise the water was unsafe.”

The Surfers Against Sewage website, which tracks sewage discharge and pollution risks, is also recommending that people don’t swim at Exmouth and Budleigh Salterton beaches in east Devon.

Several local dog owners have reported their pets getting seriously ill since the incident.

South West Water said it was the responsibility of beach managers to put up signage.

A spokesperson for the firm said they are no longer using tankers to transport waste from the burst sewer.

They said: “We would like to again thank local residents for their continued patience whilst the works are taking place and we are sorry for an inconvenience this has caused.”

If Pennon can find the millions to buy one of the most heavily indebted water companies then surely they don’t need to turn to SWW consumers to foot the catch-up costs of bringing our local sewage infrastructure up to date. – Owl  

[The Guardian reports this story under the headline: Owner of firm fined for sewage dumping buys Sutton and East Surrey Water]

Sutton and East Surrey Water, the privatised supplier to some of the wealthiest addresses in England, has been bailed out by Pennon, the owner of South West Water.

Robert Lea www.thetimes.co.uk

One of the most financially distressed water companies in the country, Sutton and East Surrey Water (SES) has been on an “at-risk” regulatory watchlist and has in recent months been forced to tap its Japanese owners for a cash injection.

Pennon, a FTSE 250 company, is raising £180 million from investors to help fund the takeover, valuing SES at £380 million. Sumitomo Corporation and Osaka Gas, SES’s owners, are to receive £89 million for their shares and the rest of Pennon’s money will go to reducing SES’s spiralling debts.

SES is one of the most heavily indebted of all England’s water companies, leveraged at more than 80 per cent of its asset base with net borrowings of £291 million on a regulatory capital value of £351 million. Ofwat, the regulator, says that water companies should not be leveraged at more than 65 per cent of their net assets.

The company is a peculiar hangover from water privatisation, in which it only supplies water to its stockbroker belt customers of 750,000 homes and businesses, from Sutton in the north to Gatwick in the south and from Cobham in the west along the M25 through Dorking and Reigate to Caterham and as far as Edenbridge in Kent. Households in the region have their sewage and wastewater looked after mainly by Thames Water.

Last year the company lost £31 million and announced it was going through a “strategic review” and attempting to find a buyer.

Despite demands from Ofwat that financially strapped water companies stop paying dividends, SES paid out more than £8 million last year. In the regulator’s latest report on the finances of the country’s water companies, SES was bracketed with the neighbouring troubled water giants Thames Water and Southern Water as among the least financially resilient.

Ofwat said of SES: “High inflation and operational issues have continued to put pressure on its reported financial metrics, with the company recognising further funding will be required to support its capital programme … and to strengthen financial resilience.”

S&P, the rating agency, recently gave SES a lowly credit rating of BBB (negative outlook), saying its “credit metrics were substantially below our expectations, largely owing to accretion on the company’s inflation-linked debt and a deterioration of operating margins”.

Sumitomo and Osaka Gas committed themselves last year to injecting £22 million into SES before the end of this financial year in March. It is understood that £14 million of that had already been pumped in and that is included within Pennon’s £89 million consideration.

The deal represents a poor return for the Japanese owners, who paid £164 million for the company in 2013, though they would have already recovered some of that money through past dividends.

SES has been led since 2020 by Iain Cain, the chief executive who is a former managing director of retail water and customer services at Thames Water. Cain was paid £544,000 last year, including bonuses of £235,000. That is marginally more than Susan Davy, the chief executive of Pennon, who forewent a £450,000 bonus.

Though on a much smaller scale, water industry sources confirmed the rescue of SES should be seen in the context of the financial crises at Thames and Southern. The shareholders of Thames have committed to pumping in £3.75 billion by 2030 to turn around its finances while Southern was saved from administration through a £1.65 billion deal with the Australian finance house Macquarie.