NHS dentistry has “no future” unless ministers agree to pay dentists more, MPs warn.
A report by Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee said efforts to fix the ailing service have been a “complete failure”.
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It said the contract between the Government and dentists carrying out NHS work must be torn up and rewritten.
Clinics make so much more money from private work that thousands more will turn their back on the health service unless they get bigger subsidies.
Rescue plans introduced under the last government have done nothing to fix the crisis, the committee said.
It found that fewer than 50 dentists out of a planned 240 took up the offer of a £20,000 bonus to move to a struggling area.
Plans for mobile check-up vans were binned and the offer of extra cash for surgeries to see patients who had not been checked for years fell flat.
If governments are not willing to invest billions in dentistry for everyone, we need a serious conversation about who should be first in line
Thea Stein
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown MP said: “Almost unbelievably, the Government’s initiatives appear to have actually worsened the picture.
“The time for tinkering at the edges is over and it is time for big decisions.
“NHS England agreed that it is time to rip up the aged contract through which dentists deliver their services and start again.
“Parliament, the dental profession and patients all now need to know, as a matter of urgency, what comes next.”
The report said: “Without a workforce sufficiently supported to deliver NHS dental care, there will be no future for NHS dentistry.”
Figures show that just 40 per cent of adults in England have had a dentist check-up in the last two years.
Most practices have closed their lists to new NHS patients.
Last year the British Dental Association found 13million people have been unable to see an NHS dentist for years – about a quarter of the population.
Public satisfaction with dental services is at an all-time low and lower than almost any other NHS service, bar A&E.
Polling by the Nuffield Trust think-tank this week revealed just 20 per cent of people are happy with how it runs, and 55 per cent are not.
Thea Stein, chief of the Nuffield Trust, said: “NHS dentistry in England has fallen apart as a universal service and small tweaks cannot bring it back.
“If governments are not willing to put in the billions required to bring back dentistry for everyone, we need a serious conversation about who should be first in line.”
A Department of Health spokesperson said: “This government inherited a broken NHS dental sector after years of neglect.
“We’re getting on with fixing it through our Plan for Change, so the NHS can be there for patients once again.”
NHS SATISFACTION AT ALL-TIME LOW
PUBLIC satisfaction with the NHS is at a record 40-year low, a survey has found.
Some 59 per cent said they were unhappy with the health service, with A&E delays the biggest bugbear among patients.
The figure, from the Nuffield Trust think-tank’s British Social Attitudes survey, is up from 52 per cent last year and the highest since the study began in 1983.
Just 21 per cent said they were satisfied with the NHS, well down from 60 per cent in 2019, before the pandemic, and a peak of 70 per cent in 2010.
Satisfaction is lowest with A&E waiting times at just 12 per cent. Social care and NHS dentistry had satisfaction levels of 13 and 20 per cent.
The poll of 3,000 was done in September and October.
Analyst Mark Dayan, of the Nuffield Trust, said: “These are pretty grim findings.”
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