Around one in seven people in Britain are now unable to access the NHS for dental treatment – and there are growing fears that record numbers of mouth cancer cases are going undiagnosed while more than a million fillings may have been missed this year.
Dentists’ representative groups said that around eight million people – around 14% of the population – will be waiting for NHS dental treatment this Christmas, but unable to access a dentist to perform it.
They say that an “unprecedented” proportion of people are now unable to access the NHS at any one time.
The analysis comes in a report from the Association of Dental Groups, which commissioned Richard Sloggett, a former aide to Health Secretary Matt Hancock, to conduct an independent ‘state of the nation’ report on access to dentistry.
His research suggests that London is the worst region in the country to access a dentist, with around 1.5 million people in the capital waiting at Christmas – equivalent to around 17% of its population, or one in six people.
The Midlands will have 1.3 million waiting, which equates to around one in eight people.
Patients waiting for dental treatment at Christmas
London: 1.5 million
Midlands: 1.3 million
North East and Yorkshire: 1.2 million
South East: 1.2 million
North West: 1 million
East of England: 950,000
South West: 800,000
Sloggett’s report – called “30 years of hurt” – suggests restrictions on the flow of people that can be seen in dental surgeries due to the pandemic are quickly making access a major problem.
The report states that for 30 years, dentistry in England has been “the forgotten service of the NHS”.
The report states: “It is time for that to change.”
Sloggett’s report argues that there is no way at present to tackle the backlog due to a severe lack of NHS dentists and proposes several urgent recommendations for boosting dentistry recruitment.
The report suggests an urgent need to boost training for dentists, enable easier access for overseas dentists to fill gaps in provision, while greater efforts should be made to retain NHS dentists.
Neil Carmichael, chair of the Association of Dental Groups and former Conservative MP for Stroud said that the figures represent “real suffering”, with hundreds of thousands – potentially over a million – fillings going unperformed, plus “a host of other treatments piling up”, as well as undiagnosed cases of mouth cancer.
Carmichael said: “Even when the Covid restrictions are lifted, dealing with this will take months. We need urgent action now to draft in more dental professionals to tackle the crisis.”
An NHS official told the BBC: “The NHS and the government are working to determine a safe and reasonable contractual arrangement with dentists, which recognises the constraints on practices and the need to maximise access for patients to see their dentist.
The report is available here.