Stockton North MP: 'People being forced to go to A&E for tooth decay'
People can't get appointments at their dentists anymore
It has emerged more than a thousand people were forced to go to A&E for tooth decay across Teesside last year.
It comes as the MP for Stockton North, Alex Cunningham, is accusing the Conservative Government of running NHS dentistry into the ground.
He says 1095 people were forced to attend A&E at both North and South Tees NHS Foundation Trusts last year due to dental decay.
Across the Trusts in 2022/23, 885 patients unable to get an NHS dental appointment were seen in A&E with a dental abscess, caused by tooth decay, and 210 with dental caries.
Across the country last year, 67,000 patients attended emergency departments with tooth decay.
Analysis of patient survey data suggests that 4.75 million people across England were denied an appointment with an NHS dentist in the past two years with millions people were either told no appointments were available or that the practice they contacted was not taking on new patients.
Alex says he has successfully secured two new NHS dental practices and £1 million of capacity funding for Tees-based dental services in 2019.
He added: "A decade of Tory mismanagement of NHS dentistry has resulted in millions of people being denied an appointment with an NHS dentist when they need it. Across Teesside, hundreds of patents are being forced into A&E with tooth decay, as they have nowhere else to turn and my office is inundated with people unable to secure a dental appointment – not helped by the fact that yet another dentist in the area has gone private.
“Labour will rescue NHS dentistry from this Tory-made crisis, so people can get an appointment when they need one. We will provide 700,000 more appointments a year to those in the most urgent need and recruit more dentists to areas with the worst shortages."
The Government says it is committed to improving access to dentistry: " We have already introduced a range of measures to improve access to NHS dentistry in England and we will soon publish a plan to boost access and improve services further."
It added that they are investing more than £3 billion a year to deliver NHS dentistry and last year, they made the "most significant changes to the dentistry contract since 2006, by introducing a range of reforms to encourage more dentists to offer NHS services and make it easier to get an NHS dental appointment."