NHS Dentistry

Mary Kelly Foy Excerpts

Tuesday 9th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mary Kelly Foy (City of Durham) (Lab)]

It was music to my ears when my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) announced that a Labour Government will introduce 700,000 extra appointments each year, get more dentists into the communities such as mine that need them the most and ensure that everybody who needs an NHS dentist can get one, because I am fed up with the state of NHS dentistry. I am fed up that my constituents cannot get an appointment, fed up that people in Durham have resorted to DIY dentistry and fed up that Tory Governments have sat on their hands for over 13 years.

To be clear, NHS dentists are not to blame for the crisis. We know they are trying their best. It is Ministers on the Benches opposite who are to blame, and they cannot say they have not been told. I have raised this important issue for the last two years and other Members have done so for so much longer. Last May, I raised, as a point of order, that the Prime Minister may have made several inaccurate statements regarding the number of NHS dentists. For instance, in Prime Minister’s questions on 3 May, he stated that

“there are more than 500 more dentists working in the NHS this year than last year.”—[Official Report, 3 May 2023; Vol. 732, c. 111.]

However, a freedom of information request obtained by the British Dental Association threw the Prime Minister’s comments into doubt. According to the FOI response, the number of dentists is in fact down by 695 compared with the previous year, and there were fewer dentists undertaking NHS work than before the pandemic, bringing the workforce down to levels not seen since 2012-13. Unsurprisingly, the Government did not correct the record, and that says it all.

Everyone knows that NHS dentistry is in crisis—our constituents tell us regularly—but the Government continue with their “It’s all fine” attempt at message discipline. Why do they not just accept that vast areas of our country are now described as dental deserts and do something about it? I hoped that the Chancellor would have offered something—just anything—for NHS dentistry in the autumn statement, but dentistry was not mentioned in the Chancellor’s speech or the policy report. Not a penny was put forward, even though the Government announced a recovery plan in April last year. That recovery plan, as we have heard, still has not been published. Even worse, perhaps, was the sinister announcement, confirmed in the answer to a written question I tabled in November, that the Government would withdraw free dental care for the long-term sick.

Last year, I led an Adjournment debate on one such dental desert—my constituency, City of Durham—and I want to repeat what my constituents shared with me so that Ministers know what people are going through. One constituent told me that they had moved to Durham four and a half years ago, but could not find an NHS dentist. They were told that, after a kidney transplant, it was vital they had regular dental check-ups to monitor their health, but then they broke their tooth and could not afford to fix it. Another constituent told me she had to borrow money to afford a private appointment; after becoming pregnant, the exemption she got from dental charges was worthless because there were no appointments available. A young girl from my constituency tripped over and shattered her teeth, and her family could not find a dentist to help her. It was only after I reported the case on social media that a local dentist kindly offered their assistance. Another was unable to find an NHS dental appointment, so out of frustration decided to go private. Following that, they were diagnosed with oral cancer.

Why is this happening? A visit to a dental practice in my constituency provided some answers. The practice had just one dentist working two days a week seeing NHS patients and it had 10,000 patients on its books. In the north-east, almost 97% of surgeries are not accepting new adult patients. It does not take a genius to work out why my constituents cannot see a dentist.

The situation nationally is diabolical. Rotten teeth is the No. 1 reason why children aged between six and 10 are admitted to hospital, with an average of 169 children undergoing tooth extractions every working day. It is clear that a preventive approach to healthcare has eroded in Britain. Fundamentally, this is because of austerity. For over 13 years, the Government have hollowed out our welfare state.

[Peter Gibson]

The hon. Lady and I share the same integrated care board. If this is to do with austerity, why has she not engaged with our local ICB to ask it about the underspend and the provision in her constituency?

[Mary Kelly Foy]

I do speak to the ICB whenever I need to and it has told me, as I am about to say, that our welfare state, of which the NHS is a part, has been hollowed out. The system is wrong. Austerity has caused these problems: it is not the pandemic; it happened many years before then.

Supporters of austerity often say they do not want to burden future generations with debt, but austerity and preventive healthcare are incompatible; we cannot have both. The healthcare problems this Government have caused our constituents—issues that could have been prevented with funding and investment—will now be more expensive to resolve down the line. Conservative Members have saddled future generations with poorer health, poorer opportunities and ultimately a poorer country, and it is time for them to go.