NHS Dentistry

Mike Amesbury Excerpts

Tuesday 9th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

Surely in this day and age everybody should have the right to receive dental treatment when they need it. That was the fundamental principle of the national health service that we, the Labour party, founded all those glorious years ago. Unfortunately, as Labour Members know—it has been well documented throughout the debate so far—the principle behind national health service dentistry has been severely undermined and eroded in each one of the 14 years of this Tory Government. Today, quite astoundingly, I think the Secretary of State mentioned that at some stage, shortly, they will publish a long-term plan. Fourteen years on, they will publish some kind of long-term plan shortly, with no date. That is the state of chaos that this country is governed by at the moment. Meanwhile, 12 million people cannot get the dental treatment they need and deserve.

We all know a bit too well that 90% of dental practices in England are closed to NHS routine patients. That is essentially creating dental deserts all across the country, including, of course, in my constituency. It is something I see all too often in the Halton and the Cheshire West and Chester parts of my constituency. I see only too clearly how bleak and extreme the dentistry desert landscape has become.

I was recently contacted by my constituent Allan from Northwich, who had been registered with the local dentist for over 10 years. After a visit to a private hygienist, he was advised to book a dental check-up. When he tried to do so, he was told that he had been de-registered as an NHS patient because he had not had a check-up in over two years. That happened during the pandemic, and he was one of many people who could not have a check-up in that period. Again, that has been documented in the debate. He was told that the dentist was not taking any new NHS patients due to a lack of capacity, yet he could be offered a fully private paid check-up in just a few weeks’ time. Of course, if people do not have the money in their pocket and do not have the ability to pay, that is not possible, and that is the case for far too many of our constituents up and down the country. Why should Allan, and millions like him, not be able to get access to the NHS dental services they need if they cannot afford private care—unlike some in this country, and even some Members on the rather sparse Government Benches that I see at the moment?

Across Britain, too many people face the stark choice of having to pay for expensive payment plans in the private sector or going without dental treatment. The cases of people resorting to DIY treatment have been well documented, as has the additional strain on our NHS hospital services when people go for emergency dental treatment. The problem extends to all parts of my community. In a recent meeting with the joint headteachers of Leftwich Community Primary School, they raised the desperate attempts they have made to try to get NHS dental appointments for some of their primary schoolchildren. Of course that is not the teachers’ bread-and-butter issue, but they are going the extra mile to help some of the children most in need in my constituency—and again to no avail.

What have the Government done to ensure increased access to dentists across England, including in my patch in Cheshire and Merseyside? The short answer is not a lot, and the situation is getting worse. I and other Members of Parliament who represent Cheshire and Merseyside constituencies recently met the chief executive and chair of the integrated care board, who told us that they have been informed by the Department of Health and Social Care that the underspend that they had inherited to spend on local dentistry, which amounted to some £10 million, must now be de-ringfenced and used for what they classed “inflationary cost pressures”, not for NHS dentistry. That has come from the Department itself. I would be interested to hear a response from the Minister on that, because it is incredible that NHS England previously said that that money was ringfenced, yet now we have evidence from the integrated care board of direction from the Department of Health and Social Care saying, “No, you will spend it on other things.”

With my neighbouring MPs across Cheshire and Merseyside, we made strong representations to the chair and chief executive of the integrated care board, but, as outlined by my good colleague the shadow Secretary of State, this is happening up and down the country. It is happening everywhere, almost by design: running down NHS dentistry, making it a thing of the past so that the default position is private dentistry.