Child in a dental chair during treatment.
Almost half of England’s children missed out on seeing a public dentist last year as the sector struggles to recover from the pandemic.
Some 44% of kids did not have an annual check-up with a National Health Service (NHS) dentist, figures released Thursday show. This is a drop of 600,000 or 9% since 2019.
The NHS recommends that adults get a check-up once every two years. But kids’ teeth can be more sensitive to problems like decay, so parents are advised to take their children to the dentist once a year.
In England, public dental care is free for children. Independent care is available, but it isn’t affordable for everyone.
The news comes just a month after a BBC investigation revealed that kids in parts of England had been waiting up to 18 months for some kinds of dental treatment.
Adult public dental care is also under serious strain, statistics show.
Over the last two years, just 18.1 million adults saw NHS dentists — a fall of 17.5% compared to the same period ending in June 2019.
Far fewer courses of treatment were being delivered by the country’s public health service. In 2018-19, nearly 40 million treatment courses were performed by NHS dentists. Over the last year, that figure fell to just 32.5 million.
The pandemic had a major impact on dental care, essentially shutting down routine services in the spring of 2020 and contributing to a backlog of dental care. But it’s not the only factor behind the industry’s woes.
Most dentistry in England is provided by private practitioners who also perform work on behalf of the NHS. The NHS will fund or subsidise routine care like check-ups, as well as clinically necessary treatment for dental problems.
But cosmetic work like tooth whitening and professional cleaning is normally only available on a private basis, for which prices may vary.
Dentists performing public work do so via a contract with the NHS — a deal the British Dental Association says is in need of major reform. The professional body says it’s driving more and more dentists away from public sector work.
Earlier this year, major private provider BUPA announced it was closing numerous practices because, alongside rising costs like energy bills, it was struggling to find enough dentists to perform NHS work.
BDA chair Eddie Crouch said in a statement issued Thursday: “We’re seeing the limits on the recovery and this government’s ambition.
“Demoralised dentists,” he added “are walking away from a broken system, while millions struggle to access the care they need.”
Lawmaker and health and care spokesperson for the Liberal Democrats, Daisy Cooper, called the statistics “completely unacceptable” in a statement.
“Every parent knows how important it is to ensure that their children can see a dentist when they need to,” she said. “This has to act as a wake-up call for the government. A rescue package for dentistry is urgently needed.”
The Lib Dems are the country’s third largest political party behind the ruling Conservatives and the opposition Labour party.