Gaps in the Diary in ‘Dental Desert’
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- Published: Thursday, 05 September 2024 09:52
- Written by Peter Ingle
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The map of Britain is covered with dental deserts. There is an access crisis. Desperate patients are taking their own teeth out. MPs post bags are heaving with letters from constituents who can‘t get to see a dentist.
Also a practice located in Lincolnshire, a county with well established dental desert credentials, that does have capacity, is struggling to fill the NHS slots in its appointment book.
Lincolnshire was the county named as the fourth-worst ’dental desert’ in England in 2022. The area had just 38 dentists per 100,000 people.
Despite this, staff at the practice in Sleaford told the BBC local network that they are struggling to fill NHS appointments for children, even following a campaign to increase take-up.
Clinicians at the Dental Design Studio in Sleaford said the disappointing response was possibly down to parents’ perceptions. The practice is part of an 18 practice group which aims to offer NHS dental check-ups for all children aged 17 and under.
Practice manager Lisa Kellie, 25, said people had become used to there not being any NHS appointments. "They’ve either gone elsewhere, or have gone private," she explained.
"We know that the demand for all NHS dentistry is extremely high - especially in Lincolnshire", she added. The Sleaford practice was now in "a really fortunate position" with eight different clinicians and it was frustrating that despite this, they were "struggling with getting people through the door.” The practice is indeed fortunate, as BUPA cited staff shortages as one of the reasons behind its 2023 practice closures in the county.
Lisa offered a possible explanation for the empty diary spaces: "People are just used to there not being any appointments since Covid."
Ms Kellie says she wants to see the return of children making regular visits to the dentist. The practices campaign had been particularly aimed at encouraging more children to get a check-up.
One result of the pandemic was that a lot of children born in 2018 and 2019 had missed getting their first check-ups, and establishing a pattern of regular attendance.
"Now we are open, we are finding children that are five or six years old who have never seen a dentist before," she said. "It’s very sad and I think parents have probably just got comfortable that it’s something that is not available to them unless they go private."
Ms Kellie said she wanted to see a return back to "some kind of normality", where a visit to the dentist was part of growing up.
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