Dentistry’s NHS Crisis Deepens
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- Published: Tuesday, 21 June 2022 10:43
- Written by Guy Tuggle
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As a Daily Mail report reveals that ninety per cent of NHS practices are closed to new patients, regional media coverage continues to highlight the desperate state of access in many parts of the UK affecting both dentists and patients.
As a Daily Mail report reveals that ninety per cent of NHS practices are closed to new patients, regional media coverage continues to highlight the desperate state of access in many parts of the UK affecting both dentists and patients.
- In Cornwall, the county’s Director of Public Health Rachel Wigglesworth told the council’s Health and Adult Social Committee that NHS dentistry had suffered “a marked failure of quite staggering proportions”. A third of twelve year olds have no dentist.
- In the town of Looe in Cornwall there is a single NHS dentist to provide care for 5,300 people which local councillor Armand Toms said was “more than one person can handle”.
- Healthwatch Bolton has reported that “it’s virtually impossible for people to get access to NHS dental care”. The group added that NHS find-a-dentist websites were seldom accurate which added to patient frustration and that “private dentistry fees are out of reach for everyone who has contacted Healthwatch Bolton”.
- Sussex World has recounted how patients in Eastbourne are facing ever longer waiting times with appointments being cancelled because dentists have quit and replacements have not been available. East Sussex CCG lost seven per cent of its dentists last year.
- East Hampshire councillor Andy Tree was frustrated to be wating over a year for an NHS dental appointment and was angered to learn when he called his practice that he could be seen “within a few days if I went private”. Cllr Tree said that many across the county couldn’t afford private care and as a consequence “their dental health will deteriorate until it becomes an emergency”. Portsmouth has the seventh lowest number of NHS dentists per 100,000 in the country at 42 according to a report by the Association of Dental Groups.
- Residents of Minehead in West Somerset have been left without an NHS dentist as the one remaining NHS dentist in the town announced she was going private. The town has a high proportion of elderly citizens who are understandably heavy users of dental services.
- “..the NHS website did not show a single dentist in the whole of Somerset, Devon, Cornwall, or Bristol currently accepting new NHS patients” resident Mr O’Keefe told the West Somerset Free Press
And finally...
Amidst the doom and gloom that is a daily reality, GDPUK picked up on one uplifting story. A new owner has taken over a BUPA dental practice that was on the cusp of closure in Flint. What was previously know as Oasis Dental Care Ltd on the town’s Acorn Business Park will now be renamed Limewood Dental Care and it will continue to offer all previously registered patients continuing NHS dental treatment.
According to Deeside.com the practice will reopen in mid-June following a refurbishment and other transitional arrangements.
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