Dental Dominoes are Falling
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- Published: Wednesday, 16 April 2025 10:34
- Written by Peter Ingle
- Hits: 1189
With each new headline the recovery of NHS dentistry, certainly as it has been known since 1948, looks increasingly unlikely. A new story from Cornwall ties some of the causal comorbidities together.
Cornwall Live has reported that a local NHS dental surgery has now told its patients that it will close down permanently in a few weeks due to recruitment issues and increasing costs. The {my}dentist practice in Redruth has sent letters out to all of its patients to inform them that the entire practice will close at the end of May. It says that the decision "has not been taken lightly".
The letter blames increased running costs and continued issues with recruiting dentists in the area, with the result that they have "prevented the practice from operating sustainably". It added that it understands this will be "disappointing news" for patients.
It is not known exactly how many patients depend upon the surgery in Trewirgie Road, but they will all now need to try and find an alternative dental practice. This will not be possible anytime soon.
The {my}dentist letter offers the following advice: "To help you to find another NHS dental practice, at the point you need your next routine dental check-up, you can search online using the NHS website located at https://www.nhs.uk/ If you have an urgent dental need, please contact NHS 111.”
The NHS find a dentist website makes grim reading. Many practices are simply not accepting new NHS patients at all. Some are accepting patients only on referral for specialist care. Others may be accepting some categories of patient, but in all case this is “subject to availability.” A further group have the following note in place of availability information: “This dentist surgery has not given a recent update on whether they’re taking new NHS patients. You can contact them directly to ask.” Amongst other smaller establishments, this is also the entry for the Peninsula Dental School.
The letter from {my}dentist concludes: "If you are currently undergoing a course of dental treatment, we will endeavour to complete this by 30" May 2025. Please attend any booked appointments as normal. You do not need to contact the practice. If you have an appointment booked with us after this date it will, unfortunately, be cancelled.
"We thank you for entrusting the practice with your previous dental needs and we wish you well with your future dental health. We are sorry that we have had to take this decision, and we thank you for your support of the practice during your time as a patient with us."
Cornwall is already a well-known dental desert. A domino effect of overloading remaining NHS providers will only add to the pressure.
This is not just a problem for Redruth. The news from one small town (pop 15,0000) illustrates a few of the universal challenges faced in delivering NHS dental care. There is a workforce shortage. There are funding problems resulting from successive fee cuts, compounded by the cost of living crisis and an increasing tax burden. Then there are the pressures on corporates, particularly those that are up for sale and keen to improve their balance sheets. It is still not clear that any of those tasked with ‘fixing’ NHS dentistry realise quite what they are up against.
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