The Ring Fence Pantomime Arrives in Plymouth
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- Published: Tuesday, 19 December 2023 09:29
- Written by Peter Ingle
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It is the Pantomime season. Across the country, theatres full of adults and the children who have given them the cover to attend, will be cheering on the heroes and booing the villains.
While residents of Portsmouth can enjoy ‘Hook’ at the Kings Theatre, a less entertaining pantomime is being performed by the authorities responsible for delivering their NHS dental care.
The NHS Dental Budget Ringfence may not have the appeal of a Peter Pan sequel, but it has provided a series of “Oh yes it is” and “Oh no it isn’t” moments for both dental teams and would be patients.
As reported by Radio Exe, money from the dental budget has already been used on other parts of the NHS. The city’s public health consultant Rob Nelder told city council cabinet members that the money is no longer available this year and the “rug has been pulled from beneath” the council.
The funds have been used to plug holes elsewhere in the NHS budget, in this case to cover the costs of strikes across the country. According to NHS providers, strikes have resulted in £2 billion in lost income to the NHS from delayed operations, scans and procedures, and the direct costs of providing cover for striking staff. The BDA recently alluded to what should have been protected money being used for this, but were not, at that time, able to provide actual examples.
There is now confirmation that Plymouth’s underspend on dentistry, estimated to be between £7 million and £9 million, has been reallocated for that purpose. This is ‘clawback’ money which historically had been returned to the government. Post pandemic the amount has risen sharply, and across England was in excess of £400 million for the last financial year. It is unlikely that Plymouth is the only area where this has happened. This is despite various assurances of protection to keep the money in dentistry, including comments by the then CDO Sara Hurley as recently as the LDC Conference in June.
Mr Nelder said that in Plymouth they had had “fought” to get the cash ringfenced for the city and the dental task force had been going forward in “good faith” that this would happen. The city would now have to wait until next year before it got any more money for NHS dentistry.
Council leader Tudor Evans (Lab, Ham) summed up the situation and revealed a lack of confidence in any promised protection: “We should be making a real fuss about this,” he said. “If we have to wait another year we know it will be halfway through 2024/25 before we hear if we can keep the underspend. We need that money sooner rather than later.”
Despite funding supposedly intended to provide 50 per cent of the population with access to NHS dental care, in Plymouth the figure is 25 per cent. More than 20,000 people in Plymouth are waiting to see an NHS dentist and the city has high levels of tooth decay in young children, many of whom have never seen a dentist. A dental task force was set up in the city to respond to the crisis after hearing that some people resort to DIY solutions to extract their own teeth.
Eighty-three children from five Plymouth primary schools are now registered for NHS dental care through Peninisula Dental Social Enterprise (PDSE), which is part of the task force, and they will continue to get appointments until they are 16. There is an added irony in that both PDSE and the associated Community Interest Company have one S Hurley as a director. Established in 2021 PDSE has not been able to prevent the area sliding into dental desert status.
In the recent government response to the Health and Social Care Committee inquiry into NHS dentistry, the Minister has once again promised to keep any underspend in the coming financial year in dentistry.
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