Access to GP Services and NHS Dentistry Debate
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Alex Sobel
Main Page: Alex Sobel (Labour (Co-op) - Leeds Central and Headingley)Department Debates - View all Alex Sobel's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
Access to GP Services and NHS Dentistry
Alex Sobel Excerpts(2 years, 4 months ago)
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Wes Streeting
I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend. This is the problem: they overpromise and underdeliver. If they will not hear it from me, Mr Speaker, let us remind ourselves of what some of the Secretary of State’s colleagues have said. The hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous), who is in the Chamber, said in Prime Minister’s questions only last week:
“At one of my surgeries, which has double the recommended number of patients per GP, the bowel cancer diagnosis of a 51-year-old father of four was missed and is now terminal.”—[Official Report, 15 June 2022; Vol. 716, c. 283-4.]
Earlier this month, the hon. Member for Telford (Lucy Allan) read a letter from a constituent to the Health Secretary. It said:
“Trying to get basic healthcare is a joke in Telford. Maybe I would be better off in…a third-world country”.
If the Secretary of State is not going to listen to us, he should at least listen to his own side. Before Conservative Members leap to the defence of their Government’s record, they should probably go back and check the record to make sure that they had not agreed with us in the first place.
As for dentistry, 2,000 dentists quit the NHS last year, around 10% of all dentists employed in England. It is an exodus under the Government’s watch. Four million people cannot access NHS dental care and cannot afford to go private either.
Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)
My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. My constituent, Ellie Cokeley, wrote to me. She works as a receptionist in a local dental practice and gets hundreds of calls a week from upset members of the public who are unable to find an NHS dentist. She said that it feels greatly unjust that the poorest in our society are being forced to pay huge amounts for vital dental care or, worse still, having to continue without any at all. Are the Government not failing people in this country when it comes to the care of their teeth? It is vital that we get more dentists in the system.
Wes Streeting
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Some places, such as Somerset, are dentistry deserts because the remaining NHS dentists are not taking on new patients.