Oxfordshire dentist warns of possible fatal impact of untreated problems
An industry body claims extra appointments from the Government ‘only covers a third of those who need urgent care’.
A dentist from Oxfordshire says untreated dental infections could potentially lead to sepsis and become fatal, as an industry body claims extra appointments from the Government ‘only covers a third of those who need urgent care’.
The 700,000 extra dental appointments promised by the Government will only cover a third of people who need urgent care, leading dentists have said.
“Early intervention is imperative”
NHS England calculations estimate that there are 2.2 million people who need treatment but are unable to get an NHS dental appointment, the British Dental Association (BDA) said.
The association highlighted reports of people pulling out their own teeth and patients left needing emergency surgery due to untreated dental infections.
Mike Reevey is a dentist in Thame, he said: “It's really important for people to get care as soon as problems arise, as treatment is much simpler, all dental tissue can be restored, and the treatment becomes less expensive. The longer you wait the more the symptoms become entrenched and more difficult to treat, so early intervention is imperative.”
“Potentially, a dental infection could lead to sepsis which would be a major dental emergency and could become fatal.
“Prior to dental antibiotics this was much more commonplace and fortunately now this is very rare but in theory, the longer one has a serious dental infection, the more likely sepsis is to occur”, he adds.
“This is austerity on stilts”
The British Dental Association said that leaving hundreds of thousands of people in England without access to NHS urgent dental care could mean people turn to "Victorian-era" solutions to dental problems.
Shiv Pabary, chair of the BDA's General Dental Practice Committee, said: "So, it seems a new Government discovered the need for urgent care, but chose just to cover a third of it. This is austerity on stilts.
"Rather than eliminating DIY dentistry, the Treasury is ensuring we keep seeing horrors that belong in the Victorian era.
"Ministers have a moral responsibility to ensure no patient is ever left in this position."
‘Committed to rebuilding NHS dentistry’
Earlier this month, the Department of Health and Social Care said that it was rolling out the new appointments from April - a key part of Labour's manifesto commitments on health.
The appointments will be targeted at so-called "dental deserts" - areas where patients particularly struggle to access NHS dentists.
Each local health body has been given a target of urgent appointments to roll out, based on estimated local levels of unmet need for urgent NHS care.
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: "NHS dentistry is broken after years of neglect.
"We are committed to rebuilding it, and delivering an extra 700,000 urgent dentistry appointments is just a first step.
"We are also reforming the dental contract to encourage more dentists to offer NHS services and tackle regional disparities, and our 'golden hello' scheme to recruit dentists to areas in need has hundreds of posts advertised."
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