Chair appointed to North Tyneside ‘Dental Taskforce’
A chairperson has been appointed to head North Tyneside Council’s ‘Dental Taskforce’ to help address concerns over local access to NHS dentists.
Councillors unanimously agreed to back the group back in March off the back of a motion brought forward to the local authority and later amended by Conservative elected members.
The passed motion read: “North Tyneside Council notes the appalling lack of dentists accepting new NHS patients in the Borough and the increasing number of dental practices moving to private patients only. This failure has been apparent for some time now.”
The motion also originally called on the Mayor, Dame Norma Redfearn to chair the group. However, coun Karen Clarke, cabinet member responsible for public health and wellbeing, has instead been appointed to head the task force.
A Labour Spokesperson said: “Nationally Labour are setting about fixing the Tories dental crisis, with a dental rescue plan. Locally we will form a dental task force working with all partners chaired by coun Karen Clarke to fix the dental crisis.”
A local authority oral health report in February also found that tooth extraction rates in 0-19 year-olds “remains high” compared to regional neighbours. In addition, the report also found incidents of “unmet” need for older residents, though the true extent could not be ascertained.
Local incidences of oral cancer and mortality rates associated with it “remain above” the national average, according to the local authority analysis. Another key finding from the report found that there is “insufficient capacity” across North Tyneside dentists to cope with the levels of demand.
The research also uncovered that North Tyneside’s rate of decay in 3-year-olds was the lowest in the region with rates far below both regional and national averages.