NHS Dental Crisis Now Hits Greater Manchester
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- Published: Thursday, 19 August 2021 07:45
- Written by Chris Tapper
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A new report by Greater Manchester Healthwatch has highlighted that there’s been a ‘huge increase’ in the number of patients struggling to find NHS dentists in the city.
The Manchester Evening News said that the “Damning report has found there’s not enough NHS dentist places to meet demand.”
The news website said “Patients are unable to access NHS care even after ringing round dozens of surgeries, because ’capacity is insufficient to meet demand,’ Greater Manchester Healthwatch reported.”
A few weeks ago, GDPUK reported that Healthwatch York said that access to NHS dentistry in Yorkshire had reached a ‘new low.’
Yorkshire Live reported that no dentists in the whole of Yorkshire and Humber were currently accepting new NHS patients for routine care.
That report resulted in Chair of the BDA’s General Dental Practice Committee, Shawn Charlwood telling York Press “Unless we see real change, these headlines will become the norm, and NHS dentistry will exist in name only."
The Manchester Evening News said patients “Are often told treatment is available if they go private, leading to fears of a ’two tier’ system.”
“And the watchdog slammed the NHS website’s ’find a dentist’ search function as ’not fit for purpose’ and urgently in need of updating.”
“One patient told researchers they had called more than 40 dentists after getting toothache but none of them were taking on NHS patients.”
“Another said their daughter was unable to get an NHS appointment anywhere, but was repeatedly offered private treatment which she was unable to afford,” the newspaper article claimed.
"This is a form of discrimination between those who can pay and those who cannot," researchers from Healthwatch said.
The report said that patients were spending hours on the phone, to no avail.
"For these individuals the sense of inequality is profound; they cannot afford private treatment and neither can they afford the calls to dental practices or the urgent dental care service," Healthwatch said.
‘Greater Manchester’s dental services are not ’meeting the requirements of the communities’ due in ’inadequate capacity.”
Healthwatch said "A return to pre-pandemic levels of capacity is not the full solution, since there was already insufficient capacity to meet the need for NHS dental care."
Dr Mohsan Ahmad, chair of Greater Manchester Local Dental Network, told the Manchester Evening News "As in other parts of the country, the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated existing challenges in dental provision in Greater Manchester.”
"Practices continue to work hard to see as many patients as possible, whilst operating at a reduced capacity due to measures in place to limit the spread of Covid-19.”
"However, we know that this is a difficult situation for some residents struggling to access dental care, especially if they are in pain or discomfort."
"We’re working to support local practices to increase capacity, whilst longer term measures are being developed and are implementing a number of targeted initiatives to help address health inequalities among groups who may be more susceptible to poor oral health."
Last month, the Bradford Telegraph and Argus reported that the West Yorkshire City had been hit by a “Post-pandemic ’surge’ of dental problems.”
Chief reporter Felicity Macnamara reported that A report to Bradford Council, on behalf of dental practice owners Alan and Janet McGlaughlin, “Set out worrying trends which have emerged during, and as a result of the pandemic, with huge backlogs and a “surge” of people suffering complex dental problems who have been unable to access treatment.”
The owners of the practice, Dentistry@BD4, were said to be seeking to increase its opening hours. The report to the council said extending practice hours “Would help to tackle these problems.”
“The result is that the practice can no longer see the same number of patients as they could pre Covid-19 and as such patients are waiting longer for both standard and emergency appointments.”
"Due to the location of Dentistry@BD4, which is positioned centrally between Bradford, Leeds, Huddersfield and Wakefield, the practices phone lines are busier than ever with an increasing number of patients calling from outside the Bradford district requesting an appointment,” the Telegraph and Argus reported.
On a national level, the British Dental Association has called for “urgent action.” BDA chair Dr Eddie Crouch has said previously, “NHS dentistry was in crisis before Covid struck, and we now face unprecedented backlogs, widening oral health inequality and workforce looking for the exit.”
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