NHS Dentistry: South-west

Clive Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 12th November 2024 Westminster Hall

[Richard Foord]

Dentists need to be rewarded under an NHS dental contract that recognises that not everyone has the same ability to pay. Frankly, if a little money were invested early in preventive measures, some of our constituents would not cost the system nearly so much later.

At a Westminster roundtable on dentistry last year, it was made plain that the issue was about not so much a shortage of dentists, but a need to attract private practising dentists to NHS work. Many dentists, even those who would ideally prefer to work within the NHS, avoid NHS work or leave it, because the current system is not fit for purpose.

On Remembrance Sunday, I was talking to a couple near the war memorial in Sidmouth. They were both veterans. Between them, they had served for 62 years, and they were unable to get NHS dental appointments. They felt that they had dedicated their lives to public service and this was how the state was rewarding them.

[Clive Jones (Wokingham) (LD)]

I thank my hon. Friend for securing this important debate. I am sure that the issues in the south-west are similar to, and as challenging as, those in Wokingham in Berkshire. Commons Library data states that only 32.6% of children in Wokingham have seen a dentist in the past two years, compared with a 40.3% figure for the whole of England. Both figures show the Conservative party legacy of rotten teeth, fillings and agony. Arborfield and Swallowfield in my constituency are without dedicated dentists. That simply is not good enough. Does he agree that NHS primary care needs to be properly funded?

[Richard Foord]

I am appalled to hear about those examples from my hon. Friend. The really disappointing thing is that some of the expense of secondary care could be avoided with a little more investment upstream in primary care.

There is a clear disparity between the work that dentists do in the NHS and in private practice. There is so much more emphasis in private practice on preventive care. We need to see that same level of preventive work happening in the NHS.

At an Adjournment debate last week in the main Chamber, it struck me that although many of us were there seeking to draw attention to NHS dentistry, not a single Conservative MP attended. I thank the Minister in the new Government for showing more commitment to NHS dentistry than the last administration, yet we have further to go. The Government prioritised the NHS in the Budget, allocating it an additional £25.7 billion. However, we needed more reference to dentistry in the Budget. The Labour party’s manifesto talked about a dental rescue plan that would provide 700,000 more appointments and, most critically, focus on the retention of dentists in the NHS. We urgently need that.

We urgently need a dental rescue package to bring dentists back to the NHS, particularly in the south-west, where we have a dental training school in Plymouth. We understand that dentists, once trained, often stay where they went to university, so we need more dentists to be attracted to the south-west and to stay once they are there.