[ad_1]
Plans to end the deepening crisis in access to NHS dental care is failing, leaving patients unable to get treatment, according to a warning from the government’s spending watchdog.
The conviction of the Court of Auditors (the Court of Auditors). on a “dental restoration plan” has prompted patient groups to voice alarm that people’s struggles with decayed teeth are a “serious public health concern”.
A pledge to provide an extra 1.5 million treatments in England this year is in disarray amid a fall in both the number of dentists working in the NHS and the people receiving help from them.
There is “significant uncertainty” about whether this ambition will be met as two key elements of the plan have not been achieved, an NAO investigation has found. None of the promised new mobile dental vans have turned up and a £20,000 ‘golden hello’ to attract 240 dentists to work in areas with acute shortages has only created one extra dentist.
the plan launched in February by the then Conservative government, promised that “everyone who needs to see a dentist will be able to” in 2024-25.
However, “based on the initial analysis to date, the plan is not on track to provide the additional courses of treatment”, the NAO concluded.
Even if the plan delivers what was promised, the NHS will still offer 2.6 million fewer treatments this year than before Covid hit in early 2020, it added.
The NHS provided 4.7 million fewer courses of treatment last year than in 2019-20. and just 40% of adults in England visited a dentist in the two years to this March – down from the 49% who did so before the pandemic, the NAO found.
Louise Ansari, chief executive of Healthwatch England, the NHS’s champion for patients, said: “These findings highlight the sorry state of NHS dentistry.”
“Difficulty getting NHS dental treatment is one of the biggest public concerns for the health system as a whole and is a crisis which dental leaders say is denying 13 million people access to NHS appointments.”
The findings were published amid huge public and political concern about the growing number of ‘dental deserts’ where NHS care is not available and the increase in patients carrying out DIY dentistry on their own teeth because they cannot get care , funded by health services and cannot afford to go private.
The other two cornerstones of the plan – a new ‘patient premium’ and an increase in payments to dentists for carrying out NHS work – have been introduced, the NAO added. NHS England expects the patient premium, worth up to £50 to the dentist, to bring in 1.13 million of the 1.5 million treatments.
However, the NAO report noted that NHS figures up to the end of September showed that “fewer new patients were seen in the first seven months of the premium compared to the equivalent period the previous year”.
The report found that its findings so far “do not suggest that the new patient premium is on track to deliver the expected additional course of treatment by March 2025”.
NHS dental care is “broken”, said Rachel Power, chief executive of the Patients’ Association.
“People live with untreated dental problems, enduring significant pain and the mental and emotional burden of decayed or missing teeth.
“Not being able to access NHS dentistry is no longer just a matter of inconvenience – it is a serious public health problem,” she added. It is “staggering” that there are 483 fewer dentists working for the NHS than in 2019-20 and that the NHS dental budget is being underspent.
Dr Nigel Carter, chief executive of the charity Oral Health Foundation, said: “The question is no longer whether NHS dentistry can be saved, but whether the government has the will to make it a real priority before it’s too late .”
People should eat a healthy, low-sugar diet and brush their teeth regularly to reduce the risk of needing care, he advised.
Labor ministers are coming up with their own pan to tackle the access crisis, but no details have yet been revealed, although they will introduce supervised tooth brushing for three to five-year-olds.
Stephen Kinnock, Dental Secretary, said: “We have inherited a dental service where many people struggle to find an NHS dentist and a reimbursement plan that is not fit for purpose.
“This government is committed to restoring dentistry, but it will take time. We are working on further measures, prioritizing initiatives that will see the biggest impact on access to NHS dental care.
“We will start with an extra 700,000 emergency dental appointments to help those most in need and reform the dentist contract to encourage more dentists to offer NHS services to patients.”
[ad_2]
