Access to NHS Dentistry

John Milne Excerpts

Thursday 22nd May 2025 Commons Chamber

[John Milne (Horsham) (LD)]

Since being elected to represent Horsham, I have been approached by many residents facing impossible prices for urgent dental treatment. Annie is 67 and caring for a husband with terminal bowel cancer. You would think that she has enough things to worry about, but given the state of dental services in the Horsham area, she has been unable to find an NHS dentist within a 20-mile radius. Forced to go private, she paid £80 for an assessment and was then quoted £150 for an extraction. She asks simply:

“When will an alternative to private dentistry be available?”

I also heard from Sally. Her family were denied NHS root canal treatment, with an £800 private option as the only alternative. She asks:

“How can we trust their advice when it feels like it’s all about the money?”

Of course, this is a crisis not of dentists, but of dentistry. The NHS contract—based as it is on units of dental activity—is simply no longer fit for purpose, if it ever was. The conflict of interest between public and private is the result of more and more dentists being forced to subsidise their NHS contracts through private work. The Government have committed to providing more support and more urgent appointments, but it is hard to get enough new employees through the front door when so many continue to leave by the back door.

In the area covered by my local integrated care board, there are more people leaving than joining across many key dental roles. Over a six-month period to the end of March last year, there were 41 general dentists in and 43 out; one orthodontist in and two out; 48 dental nurses in and 60 out; and 48 receptionists in and 54 out. In fact, five out of nine roles in dentists’ clinics have been losing staff faster than they can get new ones. The result is ever-declining access to NHS dental services, with children losing their teeth before they even reach the age of 10 and the horror stories of do-it-yourself dental treatment.

I will leave the House with the words of the West Sussex local dental committee, which contacted me just weeks after my election last year regarding the NHS dental contract. Its warning was simple:

“If we don’t act quickly, there may be very little NHS left to adopt a new NHS contract.”

I accept that the present Government were not responsible for causing this problem, but they are responsible for fixing it.