Dental Care: Durham

Lord Beamish Excerpts

Wednesday 24th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mary Kelly Foy]

I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. The dentists that I have spoken to recently all want to help NHS patients, but the way the contracts are designed, it is not worth their while, and of course they have to make a living.

I mentioned that I made a point of order yesterday regarding the Prime Minister, who has repeatedly claimed that there are “500 more dentists” in the NHS. However, following a freedom of information request, we now know that the number of dentists in the NHS fell by nearly 700 last year. The number of dentists has also fallen since the pandemic and is at its lowest level in a decade.

Diagnosing the causes of the problem is not complicated. As I mentioned at the beginning, Britain has poorer oral health than any other developed economy. The system is also dysfunctional, and practices have handed back a record £400 million-worth of funding back to the Government because they do not have the capacity to meet the required targets.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend and neighbour agree that we have to see what the need is in each area? I contrast the current approach with when Labour were in power in Durham: we brought in new capacity where we knew that areas did not have access to NHS dentistry.

[Mary Kelly Foy]

I thank my right hon. Friend for the intervention. We all know that there is huge demand and such a lack of NHS dentists out there that it is, I guess, a question of political will whether this problem is solved or not.

The absence of oral healthcare from our national debate about the future of the NHS is alarming. Dentistry is integral to our national health and therefore must be key to the NHS. Without proper investment in preventive healthcare such as dental check-ups, we cannot quickly treat oral cancers, nor can we stem the flow of people with dental problems into our already overcrowded accident and emergency departments.

I would be grateful if the Minister responded to the following questions. First, will he ensure that dentistry is properly represented in the governance structures of the NHS? Dentistry must be at the centre of the policy-making process, not an afterthought. Secondly, will the Government publish a comprehensive national dental strategy, one that is focused on prevention and tackling health inequalities? Thirdly, will he undertake meaningful reform of the NHS dental contract, which would stem the flow of dentists out of the system? Fourthly, will he work with the BDA on the previous points?

Finally, as I have said, I raised a point of order yesterday on the Prime Minister’s claim that there are 500 extra dentists in the NHS. There are in fact 700 fewer dentists, not more. Unless I have missed something today, the Prime Minister has not corrected the record, as he is obliged to. Will the Minister finally correct the record on behalf of the Prime Minister?

I could have spoken for hours this evening, reading out the correspondence I have received from constituents. Each constituent’s experience reflects a serious failure by this Government, so I implore the Minister not to insult the intelligence of the people of Durham, but to take this opportunity to accept that there is a crisis in NHS dentistry and to commit finally to meaningful reform.

--- Later in debate ---

[Neil O’Brien]

I have already read out the statistics. I will not read them out again, and I do not think there is a need to correct the record. The statistics that the hon. Lady is drawing on are incomplete, because there is effectively a two-month lag between activity and the need to report that activity. Drawing on such incomplete information does not give the full picture, so I caution her against doing so.

First, I encourage the hon. Lady to wait for the official data in the usual way. Secondly, we are looking to improve that official data by, indeed, working with and responding to concerns raised by the BDA. I do not think that headcount is a sensible measure with the workforce. There are more people doing NHS work than there were in 2010. What we are really interested in is the total amount of activity, which is best measured by the total number of UDAs being delivered. As I have said, that total amount of activity is going up. In the last month for which we have data, it had gone up from 85% in March 2022 to about 101% in March 2023, but it is still not high enough. Although the trend is positive and dentists are doing more NHS work, the point of agreement here is that that needs to improve further.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

I am sorry, but the Minister cannot have it both ways. First, the population of this country has increased since 2010 and we need to measure the number of dentists against the size of the population. The other thing is that he can talk about UDAs, but if people are in an NHS dentist desert, as is the case in Durham, it does not matter if the number has gone up elsewhere. If people do not have access to a dentist, they do not have access to a dentist and therefore cannot be treated.

[Neil O’Brien]

That point is clearly correct, but that is not to disagree with anything that I have just said.

Rather than getting into the weeds—I have already read out the official statistics—let me try to end on a note of agreement. We absolutely want to take further steps to ensure that we increase access to NHS dentistry where it is lowest and, as well as improving the service for patients right across the country and improving preventive activity, we want to see particularly rapid improvement in those areas, perhaps including that of the hon. Member for City of Durham, that have not had the level of access that we would want over recent times.

Question put and agreed to.