Fact-Checked - DIY Claims Made By MailOnline & Telegraph
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- Published: Tuesday, 11 October 2022 07:37
- Written by Chris Tapper
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Claims made by The Telegraph and the MailOnline about the numbers of Britons who resort to DIY dentistry when they struggle to access NHS dentistry were untrue, a fact-check has shown.
The Telegraph headlined an article on 21st September with “One in five resort to ‘DIY dentistry’ as appointments crisis grows,” but the fact-checking website Full Fact has dismissed this claim as untrue.
Full Fact said the “MailOnline claimed that “20% of Brits have resorted to ‘DIY dentistry’ amid NHS crisis”, according to a new poll, while The Telegraph said: “One in five resort to ‘DIY dentistry’ as appointments crisis grows.”
But the fact-checking website said “This is not what the poll, commissioned by the Liberal Democrats, actually found.”
“Instead, the survey of 2,234 people found that 36% had got a dentist appointment when they needed one, 23% had tried and failed, and 40% hadn’t tried.”
“Of the 23% that had tried and failed to get an appointment, 21% said they had tried ‘DIY dentistry’—defined as carrying out dental work on themselves or asking someone who is not a dentist to help them.”
Full Fact said “This means that almost 5% of people surveyed had tried DIY dentistry, as opposed to the 21% reported by MailOnline.”
Full Fact reported that the website contacted the MailOnline after fact-checking and the publication changed part of its headline to “20% of Brits who’ve been unable to get an NHS appointment have resorted to ‘DIY dentistry” and added a footnote to clarify this error.
Full Fact said “However, the first line of its article still states: ‘One in five Britons are resorting to ’DIY dentistry’ due to a drought of NHS dental appointments.’”
The MailOnline and Telegraph articles both specifically highlighted ‘extreme methods’ of DIY dentistry, such as people pulling their own teeth or attempting to make teeth out of materials such as superglue or resin.’
But Full Fact said “This particular poll carried out on behalf of the Liberal Democrats did not ask people what forms of DIY dentistry they had carried out.”
In contrast to the national news outlets, the Cornwall Live news website correctly quoted the Liberal Democrats survey on Monday when it reported “Fewer than four in ten people saw an NHS dentist in Cornwall in the past two years.”
The news website said the revelation “Comes as polling commissioned by the Liberal Democrats reveals that one in five people who failed to get an NHS dentist appointment in the past year (21%) turned in desperation to DIY dentistry - meaning they either extracted their own teeth or performed another procedure on themselves, or they asked someone else who was not a dentist to help them.”
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