Ongoing Updates on the Campaign to Improve NHS Dentistry Access
We now have the NHS Dentistry Recovery and Reform proposals. This is a widely welcomed success for our longstanding campaign. Dentists and patients are united in recognising the difference this recovery plan will make.
The effects of the Covid-19 Pandemic and the longstanding issues rooted in contracting changes brought in by Tony Blair's Labour Government in 2006 have to be overcome.
My team and I are acutely aware of the ongoing lack of Dentists in the Worthing area and the strain and pain this is causing to families and individuals.
Constituents write, almost daily, concerned with the lack of available NHS Dentists locally. Some resort to visiting A&E or attempting DIY-procedures.
In January, I met with Dame Andrea Leadsom MP, Minister for Primary Care and Public Health, to highlight constituents’ concerns and contribute to the recovery plans to address the longstanding contract problems created by Labour in 2006.
I have worked closely with the British Dental Association (BDA) as well as our local Dentists to understand what is needed and how we can better increase our dentists' capacity.
Last year, I led on a cross-party letter with the BDA to the Treasury requesting increased funding for dentistry.
I have also been in touch with the General Dental Council and the Care Quality Commission to find ways to speed up the verification process for overseas dentists and the approval of new dental practices.
While recognising my longstanding work, the Secretary of State announced a major increase in NHS contract payments, an increase in dental training places by up to 40% and support to bring more graduate dentists into the NHS.
We welcome the projected million more NHS dental appointments over the next year thanks to the recovery plan.
I am grateful to our Dentists. We share in understanding the issues and we work together to achieve positive results.
We are in frequent contact with NHS Sussex about this issue and actively press to restore vital levels and provisions of service. It is unsatisfactory that levels have not significantly recovered since the COVID-19 pandemic.
Rather than participating in meaningless and unnecessarily partisan votes on Opposition Day debates, I have been pressing the newly appointed Dentistry Minister for a meeting to make her personally aware of the long-standing and difficult dentistry situation in Worthing and Arun as well as my longstanding campaign to improve the situation locally and nationally.
We acknowledge the enormous blow the pandemic dealt to an already struggling sector but it has brought attention to this severe problem and inspired many to desire change.
Prior to 1990, virtually all UK dental care was NHS, with only about 500 purely private dentists, mostly working within London’s W1 postcode. Dental health was low. Access to dental health care was lower.
A greater professional understanding of the importance of prevention of oral diseases, compared to the historical surgical/activity-focussed model, combined with a new approach to clinical freedom for Dentists to practise privately, rather than being confined to limited NHS practises, vastly increased access to dental care in the early 1990s.
Changes brought in under Tony Blair and Labour in 2006 saw the imposition of the now universally vilified 'Units of Dental Activity' (UDA) system in England and Wales, which brought about a major exodus towards the private sector and crumbled the NHS dental sector.
The old NHS contract brought in under Thatcher and Major meant that Dentists were paid for every item of treatment they provided: examination, filling, crown or denture. Under the new system brought in under Blair, they would be paid per course of treatment, irrespective of how many items are provided within it. As such, a course of treatment involving one filling (3 UDAs) attracts the same fee as one containing five fillings, a root treatment and an extraction (also 3 UDAs). This factor is behind much of the resentment against this system and caused the large-scale decrease in NHS Dentists.
Understanding this means we can appreciate that the crux of the problem is not a shortage of Dentists but, rather, a problem with the contracts that enable dentists to take on NHS patients.
At the end of 2022, I was in touch with the General Dental Council (GDC) and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) to request speedier processes to verify overseas dentists’ credentials and any CQC assessments of new dentist practices awaiting their approval. The Department for Health and Social Care has confirmed that it is currently working with the GDC on legislative proposals to allow it greater flexibility to expand the registration routes open to international applicants.
I have submitted a number of Written Questions in Parliament and have ongoing meetings with the British Dental Association (BDA) to discuss what might be needed and how he can support all efforts to increase capacity for NHS Dentists. More recently, I signed a cross-party letter prepared by the BDA for submission to the Treasury to request more funding for dentistry.
I am grateful to our local Dentists and practises. They are aware of the issues and already work really hard and intensively to do what they can. For many, it is almost impossible.
With representatives from the British Dental Association, we have discussed how the dental contract provisions continue to be ineffective and unfair to many Dentists. I have continued to relay this to senior Ministers in the Department for Health and Social Care.
We understand access to emergency dental help has improved somewhat in recent months and also that others who have contacted us have had some success locating an NHS dentist – most recently one in Brighton.
Please do see this website for further information: https://www.sussex.ics.nhs.uk/your-care/local-nhs-services/nhs-dentistry-in-sussex/
If you are unsuccessful please kindly let us know and we will contact NHS Sussex directly on your behalf to raise the issue.
The more we work in unison, across all parties, the better the result.
Let us try and bring everyone together with the necessary urgent approach so that we can expect significant improvement to the present severe concerns.
There is no easy or fast solution.
We achieve progress with the right approach.
