New patients face near four-year dental wait

Devon residents hoping to secure a dentist are having to wait nearly four years as demand rises and the number of dentists in the county shrinks.

Richard Foord, the Liberal Democrat MP for Honiton and Sidmouth, secured a debate in Westminster Hall on the issue of dentistry in the South West as the county’s dental health worsens.

Mr Foord said the South West was a “special case” and that some constituents who needed treatment were only able to find available appointments 80 miles from their homes.

“On Remembrance Sunday, I was talking to a couple near the war memorial in Sidmouth,” he said.

“They were both veterans. Between them, they had served for 62 years, and they were unable to get NHS dental appointments.

“They felt that they had dedicated their lives to public service and this was how the state was rewarding them.”

Mr Foord said 51 per cent of adults in the South West had access to a dentist in 2015, the same as the national average, but that these figures had now fallen to 40 per cent for England and 34 per cent for Devon.

The pressure on the sector has been exacerbated by the fact Devon now only has 497 dentists compared to 549 in 2020.

Labour pledged to rebuild dentistry in its manifesto before the election, but the word ‘dentist’ only appeared once in chancellor Rachel Reeves’ Autumn Budget, with the word ‘dental’ not appearing at all.

The British Dental Association says the contracts that dentists sign with the government “often bare little relation to the work they do”, and that some treatments are therefore delivered at a “financial loss”.

Rebecca Smith, the Conservative member for South West Devon, agreed the lack of dentists was an issue in Plymouth, noting that tooth-related issues were more commonly becoming a reason for people to attend the emergency department at Derriford hospital.

“In the last 12 months, 876 people attended the emergency department at Derriford hospital for a dental reason,” she said.

“Of those, 18 per cent were under the age of 20 and 82 per cent were over 20. That is an average of 2.4 people per day having to resort to using the emergency department to access dental care.

“Of these patients, 77 were then admitted for treatment.”

Ms Smith added that the drop in the number of dentists in the county meant each remaining dentist must see an additional 300 patients per year.

Torbay’s Liberal Democrat MP Steve Darling called his constituency a “dental desert”.

“We have more than 2,200 people on our waiting list, desperate to receive support from a dentist.

“I fear that is just a shadow of the reality of the need there, because people think that it is a forlorn hope to be able to register for a dentist.

“More than half the adults of Torbay have not seen a dentist in the past two years and more than a third of children have not seen a dentist in the past year.

“This is a cocktail of severe dangers for the health of communities across the United Kingdom.”