Fewer than half of practices seeing new patients - BBC
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- Published: Wednesday, 06 September 2017 07:39
- Written by News Editor
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A BBC report this morning (Sept 6) claims that 48% of practices are not accepting new adult patients, while 40% are not accepting new child patients. In an interview on the Breakfast programme, Henrik Overgaard-Nielsen said the Government had only commissioned enough dentistry to treat half the population.
BBC News has conducted a data analysis of more than 7,000 dental practices in England that are listed on the NHS Choices website. Just over 2,500 of these practices had information about whether they were currently accepting new NHS patients. Of those practices displaying information about new NHS patients, 48% were not accepting new adult patients, while 40% were not accepting new child patients.
Henrik Overgaard-Nielsen, Chair of General Dental Practice at the BDA, said that dentists were not allowed to see more patients. "The government has only commissioned enough dentistry to treat about half the adult population and this is an absolute disgrace. There is an emerging crisis with more and more dentists not accepting NHS patients."
But the BDA says 21 million adults and 5 million children have not recently seen an NHS dentist. BDA representatives have been appearing on BBC programmes and across social media this morning.
An NHS England spokesperson said: "The latest NHS patient survey found that 95% of people seeking a dental appointment were able to get one, and the overall number of dentists offering NHS care is 3,800 higher than a decade ago."
A Department of Health spokesperson said: "Improving oral health is a key priority for this government, and in the last two years more than 22.2 million adults were seen by a dentist. We expect NHS England to ensure there are sufficient dental services to meet the needs of the local population."
Tony Kilcoyne, speaking to the BBC, said:
- "The vast majority of dentists want to support the NHS, but we're not miracle workers and a bankrupt dentist is no good to anyone,"
- "The vast majority of dentists are self-employed so the government doesn't pay our staff or our overheads like a hospital.
- "If the system is funded at about half the level that it needs to be, then we can't treat everyone."
BBC news highlighting the Limited NHS dental syste
Ah yes the old trick of adding 2 years work of statistics together and STILL only managing half a service to the population due to their limited resources imposed, but promising everything to everyone.Why is NHS England and the DH and thus the Politicians they represent, stuck in DENIAL ?!?
Isn't it time they came clean publicly and admitted NHS Dentistry in England is resourced at about HALF of what it needs to be truly NHS to all?
What happened to the Nolan Principles of Public service, or the duty of Candour, let alone just being fully open and transparent and publicly accountable Centrally ?!?
The continued Centralised Denials and Spin is of great concern to all - if they can't admit such obvious truths about NHS Dentistry, it raises the question what else can't they be trusted to be fully honest with us about ? :shock: ?
Yours still deeply concerned,
Tony.
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