NHS dental appointments collapsed to just 2% of their normal levels in the middle of the pandemic last year and barely reached a third of typical volumes by the end of the year, according to official data.
The data highlights the severity of the lack of availability of NHS dental services and while there has been further recovery during 2021, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) said urgent questions remained including around capacity for treatment.
In its annual review of the UK’s health and care services, the CQC emphasised that while access to NHS dental care has been highlighted as an issue before the spread of Covid-19, “there are clear signs that this has been compounded by the pandemic”.
Data from the NHS Business Services Authority showed dental treatments in 2020 were just 42% of the 2019 figure.
This reached a low point in May 2020 when only 166,704 procedures were conducted, just 2% of the 6.76 million that were undertaken in May 2019.
This slowly rebounded to 1.89 million visits in December 2020, the latest month for which figures were made available, but that was barely 31% of the 6.08 million appointments a year earlier.
Long-running issue
Many bodies have recognised the dearth of NHS dental services during the pandemic and MPs have raised the matter several times with government ministers.
Issues around booking routine care, restarting treatment that began before the pandemic, and getting emergency treatment were common themes, the CQC reported.
It said this lack of accessibility often had a significant impact with people feeling abandoned, disrespected, frustrated, and sometimes in pain.
However, the regulator noted services had improved during 2021 and credited some practices with adapting to the pandemic.
This included supporting staff to triage patients with additional training or call monitoring, offering additional opening hours into the evenings or weekends, and referring people between sister practices.
But it said there were four important questions that the dental sector needed to address:
- How will confidence be restored that access to NHS dental services is available for everyone?
- What measures need to be taken to prioritise and improve access to urgent dental care through NHS 111?
- Is there enough NHS dental capacity commissioned, and how will NHS policy leaders and commissioners deal with the demand to ensure those who are vulnerable and without a dentist have equality of access to NHS care?
- With a move to system working and joined-up working in a place, how will oral health be seen as an integral part, providing access to the right service, in the right place, first time?