New report calls for fundamental reform of NHS dental care: Healthwatch Lincolnshire Response
With the publication today of their new report, highlighting the need for Fundamental reform of NHS dentistry to end a ‘crisis of access’, Healthwatch Lincolnshire welcomes the findings and recommendations of the Health and Social Care Committee. (Read the full report here)
On behalf of the Lincolnshire people, we are pleased to have been able to give evidence in person on your behalf as part of the Committee’s evidence gathering, which formed part of the report’s findings.
There is a serious problem for people trying to access NHS Dentistry, particularly in Lincolnshire. It feels like we have been in a dental "desert" for far too long and needs to be treated as a high priority.
Healthwatch Lincolnshire Steering Group's concerns remain: how long will any reforms of the service take and what happens in the meantime to the hundreds of people each week who are struggling to access emergency treatment, let alone routine NHS dental care.
Healthwatch England said:
“Healthwatch England welcomes this report from the Committee, which has accepted the evidence we gave in person to MPs that there is a crisis of access and affordability in NHS dentistry and that ‘everyone should be able to access an NHS dentist when they need one, wherever they live’. We also welcome the call for a national information campaign to tackle misconceptions about ‘registration’ with dentists.
Ultimately, only a fundamental and fully resourced reform of the dental contract can tackle these deep seated problems and we call on the government to publish its dental recovery plan urgently.
NHS dentistry is the second most common problem that the public report to Healthwatch, with more than 400 local reports from across England in the past three years exposing experiences of people suffering in pain, performing DIY dentistry and struggling to pay the costs of treatment.”
What have people told us about dental care?
Over the last few years we have seen an increase in the proportion of people telling us they found it hard to access an NHS dentist. Issues we have repeatedly highlighted to national decision-makers include:
- Longer waiting times for care unless people are prepared to pay for private treatment;
- People finding out their NHS dental practice had gone fully private;
- People finding they had been taken off their dentist NHS lists because they had been unable to visit them during the pandemic;
- Unclear advice about where to get help or which dentists are taking on NHS patients; and
- People being left in pain, with some developing more problems that led them to be hospitalised and cases of people treating themselves inappropriately.
Tell us your experience seeing an NHS dentist
Thousands of people have got in touch to tell us it's hard to get an NHS dentist appointment. Please tell us if this is the case for you and your loved ones.
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