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’.”
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