Covid-19: Dental Services

Baroness Uddin Excerpts

Tuesday 10th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I completely acknowledge the challenge that the noble Baroness has described. Many dentists can see only 20% of their normal cases, and around half can see about 50%. The backlog is, as she describes it, severe, and the impact, particularly on private dentists, has been very hurtful for their businesses. I cannot make a commitment to fund ventilation arrangements, but we acknowledge the scale of this challenge and are looking at ways to mitigate it, including bringing in testing, which we hope would help provide a safe environment for both staff and patients.

[Baroness Uddin (Non-Afl)]

My Lord, the Minister will be aware that people with learning disabilities and autism have suffered disproportionately in not receiving care and services. Will he undertake to ensure that they are not equally suffering by not receiving dental services, especially specialist dental provisions? I declare that I have a 41 year-old son with a learning disability and autism. I have spoken to a number of organisations that said that the pandemic exacerbated the difficulties in the process of receiving important and urgent care.

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness refers to the prioritisation of patients in the constrained appointment flow of dentists. She is entirely right that those who have vulnerabilities, disabilities or other disadvantages should be prioritised: that is the objective of the prioritisation process. She makes the point extremely well and I am happy to take on board any points on where she thinks the system is not working as well as it might do.