Reforms to NHS Dentistry

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Thursday 27th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

We have had a full and thorough debate this afternoon on NHS dentistry—something that really matters not just to us as Members of Parliament, irrespective of the party we represent, but more importantly to our constituents. I, too, commend my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford South (Judith Cummins) for securing this debate along with the hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous). The way that they both put the case before the House has been compelling. It is incumbent on us all to try to find a way through the morass that is NHS dentistry. I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson), my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson) and my hon. Friends the Members for City of Durham (Mary Kelly Foy), for Bootle (Peter Dowd) and for York Central (Rachael Maskell) for their contributions.

I also thank the hon. Members for Winchester (Steve Brine), for Hartlepool (Jill Mortimer), for Broxtowe (Darren Henry), for Milton Keynes North (Ben Everitt) and for Barrow and Furness (Simon Fell), the right hon. Member for Tatton (Esther McVey) and the hon. Members for Bolsover (Mark Fletcher), for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher), for North Devon (Selaine Saxby), for Broadland (Jerome Mayhew) and for Keighley (Robbie Moore) for setting out their own perspectives and the issues that their constituents have raised about NHS dentistry, which are not that dissimilar from the issues that my constituents raise.

It is not a party political point to say that NHS dentistry has been in crisis for a very long time. As we have heard today, patients are being failed on an unprecedented scale. Many are having to suffer through unending pain and misery because they cannot access the care that they so desperately need.

In preparation for this debate, I spoke with people right across the country, and I will share some of the cases that highlight the sheer scale of the crisis. In Darlington, local people have been told that it will take two years for the current backlog in dental care to be cleared, and some are being forced to wait over three years to access treatments. Some residents are being forced into removing their own teeth, in what has been dubbed “DIY” tooth extraction. I shudder to think what state someone’s dentistry services are in when they have to extract their own teeth. Reports have exposed gums becoming infected and individuals becoming addicted to opiates, and unintentionally overdosing on pain relief.

We heard from the hon. Member for Bolsover, but somebody I spoke to raised the fact that local Bupa practices in Bolsover are closing due to a lack of NHS dentists, and patients are being told to glue crowns back on themselves with denture paste because there is no other way of accessing care. The same is true in Corby, where patients are being left stranded after the closure of the Oakley Vale Bupa dental care centre. I could go on. In Loughborough, one resident said that they have been unable to register with an NHS dentist since moving to that part of the country in 2019, and nationally tooth extraction is now the biggest single reason for hospital admissions of under-10s, with 73 children a day having to receive emergency care to remove rotting teeth. When parents try to get appointments for their children, they are turned away.

In Bassetlaw, one resident told local councillors that when she tried to sign her son up to a local NHS dentist she was informed that there was a waiting list of 2,000 people, and that they would have to go private—something that she cannot afford. Local people in Ilkeston have been told to sign up to dentists in Derby because no local surgeries are taking on new patients. The same is true in Darwen, where people are being told that the nearest dentist they can see is in Salford. In Swindon, one parent looking for a dentist for her two-year-old was directed to the only practice that she could find that was taking patients. The problem was that it was 90 miles away in Birmingham. Such stories are commonplace. We have heard them in contributions from Members on both sides of the House.

It would be wrong to pretend that there was a golden age of NHS dentistry in recent years. There was no utopia. There is a reason my teeth, and I hazard a guess those of many Members in the Chamber, are full of fillings. It is not because we failed to brush our teeth as well as our children brush theirs, or because we ate more sweets than our children; it is because the financial incentive in the past was to drill and fill, whether someone required that filling or not. The contract, which is a big part of the problem today, was brought in with the right intention: to move NHS dentistry more towards prevention. However, it did not work. As the right hon. Member for Tatton set out, the issue of funding through units meant that many dentists were just not incentivised to take on NHS care. Tinkering will not work either. It is incumbent on us all to work out a system that will both work and put the capacity back into NHS dentistry, so that patients get the care that they need and deserve, and dentists get the appropriate financial recompense.

I will pose a few questions to the Minister, because we know that a plan is coming. Will he set out, first and foremost, what steps the Government will take in that plan to immediately improve access to dental treatment in the so-called dental deserts? Additionally, given that a recent BDA member survey showed that more than nine in 10 owners of dental practices with a high NHS commitment found it difficult to recruit a dentist, what is he doing to fill the widespread vacancies across the sector? I assume this information exists in the NHS workforce plan, which is still sitting on the Secretary of State’s desk. Will the Minister update the House on why the plan is yet to be published and when we can expect the Government to release it?

We know that NHS dentistry has not worked for a very long time. Governments of all colours are responsible for where NHS dentistry is today. I am not bothered about the past. People with toothache or oral health issues want help today, so it is incumbent on all Members to make sure NHS dentistry is fit for the future, because the stories and statistics that Members on both sides of the House and I have communicated in this debate are simply not acceptable. The Opposition stand ready and willing to help the Government to build the NHS dental services this country needs and, when the time comes under the next Labour Government, to make those NHS dental services the best they can be.