Healthwatch speaks out about access to dentists
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- Published: Monday, 18 August 2014 22:20
- Written by News Editor
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People all across the country are venting increasing frustration about access to and the quality of NHS dentistry services, according to Healthwatch England. Its chair Anna Bradley said: “Patients are constantly being fed confusing and inaccurate information about who is and isn’t currently offering NHS treatment.” The BDA said that the survey provides further evidence that the current dental contract in England is fatally flawed for patients and dentists alike.
Healthwatch England research found that in some areas just 1 in 5 surgeries are accepting new NHS patients. There are reports of patients being deregistered / struck off books without notice and emerging concerns of dentists providing poorer quality services on the NHS and insisting on private treatments.
But by far the most common problem is finding a surgery willing to take on new NHS patients in the first place. According to the NHS Choices website, which holds important signposting information for NHS services in England, just under half of the country’s 8,000 dentist surgeries are currently registering / willing to take on new NHS patients. Yet a spot check of 300 surgeries conducted by Healthwatch England showed that in some areas the numbers are as low as 1 in 5, with Yorkshire and Humberside the worst affected region.
Anna Bradley, Chair of Healthwatch England, said: “We hear a lot in the news about people struggling to access their GPs but it would seem getting an appointment with an NHS dentist is even more frustrating! Patients are constantly being fed confusing and inaccurate information about who is and isn’t currently offering NHS treatment, and are feeling like they have to opt for costly private treatments such as hygienist appointments so that they don’t get struck off the books. It’s simply not acceptable and such basic consumer concerns must be addressed when the Dentist Contract comes up for renewal next year.”
Statement from NHS Choices:
"NHS Choices (www.nhs.uk) provides every NHS dentist with the opportunity to tell local people about their services, including an indication of whether they are currently accepting NHS patients for new courses of treatment. Whenever we hear from the public or bodies such as Healthwatch England that information is not up to date for a particular practice, we contact the practice. This is our opportunity to help and encourage them to provide accurate information. Each dentist’s page on NHS Choices has a facility for the public to alert us if they see a problem with the information we have published. This is a very valuable in helping us fix any problems. We urge both the public and Healthwatch England to provide us with detail of any errors via the website or by emailing This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.."
BDA responds to Healthwatch England survey
The Association has been campaigning against this rigid, target-driven contract from day one of its introduction in 2006. Dentists are commissioned by NHS England to deliver a set number of units of dental activity (UDAs) every year, and this number of units is all that the NHS is willing to fund. Many dentists want to take on new NHS patients, the BDA explains, but practices are forced to turn them away when their allocated or capped dental budget for the year runs out. Another limitation is that the dental budget is based on the population's needs eight years ago (2006) which means that dental provision in some parts of the country does not reflect current needs.
The contract also removed people's ability to register with an NHS dentist which ensured that people knew they were entitled to NHS care, so patients cannot be 'deregistered' as the Healthwatch survey asserts. Once a patient finishes a course of treatment the next time they see the dentist, under the 2006 contract, they are regarded as a 'new' patient. Most practices continue to care for their list of patients, but the BDA points out that because NHS funding for every practice is fixed, this means that individual practices have limited scope to take on new patients, if at all.
The BDA has spent long years lobbying governments of all political hues to reform the dental contract: we want a system that favours patient-centred, preventive care over tick-box targets, and provides a fair reward for dentists. This campaigning resulted in an agreement in 2011 to launch pilots to test new ways of delivering NHS dental care.
The Chair of the BDA's General Dental Practice Committee, John Milne, said: "The Healthwatch survey is not a particularly representative sample of the population, given the small numbers involved and the fact that its findings are so out of step with the latest NHS patient survey of more than a quarter of a million patients. This showed that up to 95 per cent of patients were successful in getting a dental appointment. However, the survey does provide an insight into just how badly patients can be let down by an inflexible dental contract. It's unacceptable that patients who cannot access NHS care when they need it are then faced with having to be treated privately or not be treated at all. It's also frustrating for dentists who want to see more NHS patients but effectively have their hands tied when their allocation of NHS funding runs out. It's time the government makes clear what the NHS does, and does not provide for patients, and explains simply what the cost is to them. We hope the new system that emerges from the pilots will provide patients with access to routine and urgent care when they need it, and improve people's oral health wherever they live. The government needs to accelerate the pace of change to ensure patients are not missing out on the care they need now. It must invest more in dentistry to ensure access improves, not deteriorates."
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