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Published: Monday, 15 January 2024 11:03

Written by Peter Ingle

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The Times ran a story on the problems facing NHS dentistry the day before MP’s competed to offer their solutions, in the latest parliamentary debate. Reading it suggests that MP’s on both sides of the house are still in denial about what sort of service the NHS can provide.

Headlined: “Fears that budgets could be raided to plug holes in other areas of health service,” it began with the stark results of a Labour party analysis of NHS data, showing that dentists were only achieving 80% of their UDA targets. To make matters worse, clawback money was likely to in the paper’s words, be “raided” to try and deal with shortfalls elsewhere in the NHS. Battered by the added effects of strikes and inflation to its established problems, the chance to repurpose dental money may prove irresistible.

The same analysis showed that from April to September 2023 dentists in England carried out 34 million UDAs despite contracts being in place for 42 million. In treatment items this can be expressed as the equivalent of 2.6 million less restorations or 7.8 million less examinations than complete UDA delivery would have allowed. There are sharp national variations with practices in Somerset and Devon managing only 26.5% and 30% of their UDA targets, respectively.

The debate would be an opportunity for the main political parties to repeat their, now familiar, lines. For Labour, who put forward their motion to “rescue NHS dentistry,” this involves providing 700 000 extra appointments each year, incentive schemes to recruit dentists in the most challenged areas and a targeted children’s tooth brushing scheme. They also want a reformed contract. They say this would be funded by the removal of non-domiciled resident tax status.

In response, Conservative MP Richard Holden, claimed that Labours plans were unfunded, since the non-dom money was insufficient to cover all of the proposals that it was supposed to. He then claimed his party would improve access to dental care with six million more appointments and expanding training places by 40 per cent.

Shawn Charlwood, Chairman of the BDA general dental practice committee, was quoted, saying: “This service hasn’t returned to business as usual as it faces down a historic backlog, shackled to a broken contract. Ministers claim they want everyone to be able to see an NHS dentist, but they’ve done nothing to achieve that goal.”

In response to this, the paper reported that “The Department of Health and Social Care is due to publish a dental services recovery plan, first promised in spring last year, shortly.”

None of the party spokesmen are willing to admit that a comprehensive NHS dental service is not going to be available to all of those who would like it, anytime soon. There is not the money, the workforce, or the contractual framework, to provide it. Such a burst of honesty would be seized upon by their opponents and become electoral poison.

It seems that there will be more debates, more reports in the media, and the familiar promises will be repeated. So too, will be the shaming numbers of children being taken to hospital with tooth decay and missed cases of oral cancer.

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