Nightmare stories of trying to get a dentist appointment in the North West are coming to the fore after an investigation revealed that some 98 per cent of NHS practices in the region are not taking on new adult patients. One patient in the area have told of how they are being forced to carry out ‘140-mile round trips’ because they cannot get onto a practice’s books closer to home, while another told the Manchester Evening News that he has had three appointments cancelled in the last year in the midst of crushing demand on NHS dental services.
Nine in 10 NHS dental practices are unable to offer appointments to new adult patients. The North West, South West and Yorkshire and the Humber are the worst affected, all reporting 98 per cent not accepting adults.
BBC News contacted nearly 7,000 NHS practices - believed to be almost all those offering general treatment to the public. The British Dental Association (BDA) called it "the most comprehensive and granular assessment of patient access in the history of the service".
The findings come during a cost of living crisis when dental patients say they are nervous about being forced to go private even though it is unaffordable. Even when using the NHS, dental services come at a cost as they are subsidised, not free.
READ MORE: Nine in 10 NHS dental practices are not accepting new adult patients
In a third of the UK's more than 200 council areas, the BBC's survey found no dentists taking on adult NHS patients, and eight in 10 NHS practices are not taking on children. The Department of Health said it had made an extra £50m available "to help bust the Covid backlogs" and that improving NHS access was a priority.
Louise Walker told the M.E.N. of how she has to organise overnight stays for herself and her son if they need a dental appointment. The family moved to Barrowford from Sheffield in May of last year and Louise contacted ‘25 to 30’ practices to try and get on their rosters of patients - to no avail.
"We moved from South Yorkshire to Lancashire and have been unable to move dentists. We now have to do a 140 mile round trip to visit our NHS dentist or go private," explained Louise.
“It’s a 70-mile trip if you go on the M60 and then Snake Pass, which is the longest route but also the quickest. When we first moved to Lancashire, it was like our dentist knew it was going to be difficult to find somewhere else, she asked if I’d like to book another appointment in case we couldn’t get a place.
“I phoned 25 to 30 dentists within a reasonable vicinity of our new home but every single one said they were only taking on private patients. I emailed a couple more not that long ago and never got a response, I was completely ignored.”
When Louise went for her most recent appointment at her dentist in Sheffield, she says staff told her there was a ‘three-year waiting list’ for the practice now. She fears the waiting lists will be the same in Lancashire, but as her son starts school in September, travelling to Sheffield is becoming increasingly impractical.
“I can’t keep it up, it takes a whole day. I try to stay with my parents the night before. It’s four hours of travelling for a 10-minute appointment.
“I’m going to have to make sure appointments are in school holidays because I can’t take him out of school for a full day to take him to a dentist appointment.”
In Greater Manchester, Lee Hancock has managed to stay with a dentist near his Swinton home. But he has faced ‘three cancellations of appointments over the last year’.
Lee has been at the practice for 12 years, while his wife has been on the books for more than 20. He organised an appointment for himself and his daughter at the end of the year, it was rescheduled for May before being cancelled again.
Finally, Lee had to call the practice and explain that his daughter was in pain with her teeth. The pair got an appointment shortly after, he told the M.E.N.
“My daughter was very anxious,” said the dad-of-two. “We lost my dad to Covid which hasn’t helped and she’d been worried about her teeth. One of them was growing behind another, pushing it to the side.
“She was in discomfort and we really needed an appointment, we go as a family and we’ve gone there for a long time. I told the receptionist my daughter was in a state and that it was an emergency. We were told we could come down a week or two later.
“But as we were sat in the waiting room I heard a receptionist say the practice was now only taking on private patients. It was infuriating to hear that we could probably be seen if we were private, but had a lot of difficulty as NHS patients.”
Lee works for himself, operating a business dealing with office interiors. As everyone moved to work from home, he ‘lost a lot of money over the last two years’, he continued. Even so, the family was forced to consider private treatment.
“We were that desperate and at the end of our tethers, we thought about going private,” said Lee. “I messaged other dentists asking if they were taking on NHS patients. We’re not going to find anywhere else.”
After the most recent appointment in June, Lee was told he needed to see a dental hygienist. But he booked an appointment that has now already been cancelled, claims Lee.
The British Dental Association is pressing the government to deliver urgent reform, as the new research from the BBC underlines the scale of the access crisis facing NHS patients across the region. 'The service is hanging by a thread', dental experts have warned as 'the service across England is being fuelled by a discredited NHS contract, which funds care for barely half the population and puts government targets ahead of patient care', they claim.
NHS England recently announced modest, marginal changes to this system, the BDA has said. However, the dental board added that the changes, which come without any new investment, will not address the problems patients face accessing services or keep dentists in the NHS.
Meanwhile, 'thousands of NHS dentists have left the service since lockdown'. Last week the House of Commons Health and Social Care Committee dubbed the contract ‘not fit for purpose’, called for urgent reform and pledged a dedicated inquiry into the crisis in the service.
After a decade of cuts, the BDA estimates it would take an additional £880 million a year simply to restore funding to 2010 levels. Among the areas where BBC News researchers could not find a single practice accepting new adult patients was Lancashire.
“Improving patient access to NHS dental care is a government priority and the new reforms to the dental contract announced last month are an important step, allowing the best performing practices to see more patients, making better use of the range of professionals working in the sector such as dental therapists, hygienists and nurses, while also rewarding dentists more fairly for providing more complex care," a Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said.
“The NHS commits around £3 billion to dentistry each year and have made an extra £50 million to help bust the Covid backlogs, building on the unprecedented £1.7 billion support we provided during the pandemic, to protect teams and patients by paying dental practices for the work they would normally have carried out if it were not for Covid regulations.”
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