English Dental ‘Deserts’ Emerge As Thousands Quit Health Service

Englandis facing its lowest number of NHS dentists for a decade as thousands leave the service, an industry body has warned.

Research by the Association of Dental Groups (ADG) reveals the worst-hit area of the country — North Lincolnshire — has just 32 dentists offering publicly-subsidised NHS care per 100,000 residents.

Other areas of the East Midlands county, as well as parts of Yorkshire in the North East, are at risk of becoming “dental deserts.” There are only around 37 NHS dentists per 100,000 people in these areas.

Nationally, 2,000 dentists have stopped offering NHS services over the last year, the report revealed. This is a drop of almost 10 percent on March 2021, when 23,733 were providing the care.

National Health Service (NHS) dentists provide subsidised examinations and treatment at standard prices, often alongside private services. Under the NHS, a regular check-up costs just under $30 (£23.80), while a private equivalent may cost anything from $25 to $150 (£20-£120), for example. Beyond check-ups, more extensive care can end up costing a fraction of the price of private equivalents.

NHS care is also free for a number of groups including the under-18, the pregnant and those on certain types of income support.

While the dental profession has been “neglected for years,” extra strain from Brexit and the Covid-19 pandemic has seen a rise in dentists leaving the NHS, the ADG argued.

Industry groups fear falling numbers of these dentists will mean more people have to pay expensive costs for private treatment. Those who can’t afford to pay may end up waiting a very long time for treatment.

Difficulty in access has caused public satisfaction to plummet, the ADG report claims, citing dramatic 2021 survey results from the Kings Fund. The think tank found satisfaction in NHS dentistry fell during the pandemic from 60% in 2019 to 33% in 2021.

Indeed, some patients face waiting three years for certain NHS treatments, a 2021 Healthwatch report revealed.

ADG chair Neil Carmichael criticised the government for growing dentist shortages in so-called “red wall” consituencies. This term refers to a stretch of the north which has historically voted for the opposition Labour party. Many seats in this region flipped Conservative in the country’s last general election in what was a major electoral upset.

Carmichael said: “Dental deserts not only stretch across the whole of the East of England from East Yorkshire, through Lincolnshire and down to Norfolk, but are now emerging in many other ‘red wall’ constituencies that the Government wishes to ‘level up’.”

He praised recent government commitments to reform the way dentists are recruited from overseas, but said further domestic reform was needed to ensure enough dentists were available across the country.

“What needs to follow is NHS dental contract reform and investment in our future domestic workforce – only when this happens will we have a chance of tackling the oral health inequalities of England,” he said.

The British Dental Association’s Shawn Charlwood, who chairs the organisation’s General Dental Practice Committee, criticised the national contract dentists who perform NHS services must sign with the health body.

He said: “Dentists are simply not seeing a future in the NHS, with a broken contract pushing out talent every day it remains in force.

“Millions are going without the care they need, and quick fixes are no substitute for real reform and fair funding. If Ministers try to move forward without fixing a rotten system they will just be painting over the cracks.

“Contract reform isn’t an optional extra. It’s the necessary starting point to save NHS dentistry.”