NHS England is to roll out 700,000 additional urgent appointments, health minister Stephen Kinnock has announced.
Kinnock said the Labour government was delivering on it’s election manifesto pledge as NHS England has today written to integrated care boards (ICBs) across the country, directing health chiefs in each region to stand up thousands of urgent appointments over the next year.
Each ICB has a target of urgent appointments to roll out, based on estimated local levels of unmet need for urgent NHS care, the Department for Health and Social Care said.
Levels of unmet need are calculated by measures including looking at how many people tried and failed to get an NHS dentist appointment.
Kinnock noted these extra appointments will be for patients who are likely to be in pain – including those suffering from infections or needing urgent repairs to a bridge – and require urgent treatment, with appointments to start coming online from April.
Statistics from the GP Patient Survey 2024 show that around one in four patients who tried to see an NHS dentist in the past two years were unable to do so.
Previous interventions have failed to address the crisis in NHS dentistry.
For example, the new patient premium – introduced as part of the Conservatives dental recovery plan published in 2024 – revealed to have cost £88m but with no impact for patients.
Data published last week showed the number of new patients accessing NHS dentists had fallen by 3% since the scheme was introduced.
This government confirmed it will be scrapping the new patient premium, and today sees it already begin the work of rolling out new appointments across the country.
As part of the government’s manifesto commitment, the extra appointments have been targeted at dental “deserts” – areas where patients particularly struggle to access NHS dentists, the government said.
This includes parts of the east of England, such as Norfolk and Waveney, where there are just 31 NHS dentists respectively for every 100,000 people – way below the national average.
Minister of state for care Stephen Kinnock said: “We promised we would end the misery faced by hundreds of thousands of people unable to get urgent dental care. Today we’re starting to deliver on that commitment.
“NHS dentistry has been left broken after years of neglect, with patients left in pain without appointments, or queueing around the block just to be seen.
“Through our Plan for Change, this government will rebuild dentistry – focusing on prevention, retention of NHS dentists and reforming the NHS contract to make NHS work more appealing to dentists and increase capacity for more patients.
“This will take time, but today marks an important step towards getting NHS dentistry back on its feet.
“The plans are the first step towards securing more urgent care for patients over the longer term and will allow for a more fundamental reform of urgent dental care provision,” he added.
