Dentists: Covid-19

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Thursday 11th February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I confess that I did not know about that association. I am not sure whether it is correlation or causation, but I completely support the noble Baroness’s observation that oral hygiene is critical, and we should put the steps in place to improve the oral hygiene of the nation.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

I think the Minister needs to go back to the drawing board, because the new NHS activity target is basically forcing dentists to choose between check-ups and helping those in pain. That cannot be right. It can only increase health inequalities, let alone deal with the gigantic pandemic backlog. In secondary care, there is the particular problem of patients needing general anaesthetic for their dental treatment. These are mostly children and learning-disabled adults. There was already a waiting list of a year before the pandemic. Could the Minister inform the House how many patients are on this waiting list now? If the Minister does not have this information, could he please write to me? Do the Government have a plan to reduce this awful, and obviously very painful, waiting list?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I do not necessarily accept the dichotomy the noble Baroness refers to. I think it is reasonable for dentists to triage patients between those who can be treated with either advice, analgesics or antibiotics, and therefore do not need face-to-face contact, and those who need to be prioritised to, for example, the urgent dental care centres. I commend the dental profession for making good choices in that area. With regard to the treatment of children using anaesthetics, those are not statistics I have to hand, but I would be glad to write to the noble Baroness with whatever information we have.