Dental Services: East of England

Debate between Peter Aldous and Matt Warman

Tuesday 16th May 2023 Westminster Hall

[Matt Warman]

It is a surprising number. As I am sure my hon. Friend knows, the water companies have raised issues that are legitimate to some extent, but the overall public good from increasing that number is obvious and would pay real dividends relatively quickly. It would be public money well spent.

[Peter Aldous]

In this place, fluoridation is recognised, but the feedback I get from water companies is that conspiracy theories on the internet cause them concern. Does my hon. Friend agree that there is a need for the Government to lead a public awareness campaign on the benefits of fluoridation to dispel these urban myths?

[Matt Warman]

I was the Minister responsible for 5G during covid, and we all remember that, apparently, 5G caused covid—I should be very clear that it did not. However, there is a clear dilemma for the Government as to how much they engage with genuinely fringe conspiracy theories and risk giving them a degree of salience and credibility that they simply do not deserve. I encourage the Minister and his colleagues in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs simply to get on with it and engage, where necessary, with people who are genuinely worried. However, we sometimes have to acknowledge that the extremities of the internet are not a place where rational debate can always be had, be it on 5G and covid or on fluoridation and tooth decay.

I will make two other points before I end my jaunt to the east of the England. The first is that I know the Minister is looking—as we do with GPs and the NHS more broadly—at what work can be done by people who are not fully qualified dentists to help the nation’s oral health. Along with the expansion of people who have trained abroad, I think that would be welcome and could make a difference, but it is not a silver bullet either.

My final point is that, although my secret shopping exercise was valuable and instructive, it is a huge sign of failure, because the data about which dentists are accepting patients should be freely and easily available so that constituents can easily see which practices are offering help. Given the structure of NHS dentistry, we will always have some dentists with open lists and some with closed lists, even in a healthy system. Easy access to that information would benefit our constituents and NHS England.

I know that the Secretary of State is a huge fan of data and is making such information as open and as easily available as possible, and I hope it can form part of the eagerly anticipated dentistry plan, which is coming “soon”—I think that is the current Government parlance. In a world where the autumn runs into February, I would hope that “soon” is well before the summer. I know it will make a difference in the medium term, but the biggest frustration for all our constituents is the fact that there is no silver bullet.

I hope the dentistry plan includes, for instance, the experimental ways of employing dentists that some trusts are using up and down the country, because that will provide some of the interim measures that I hope will come before the opening of the three dental schools that we have secured in this debate alone. Those will make a huge difference, but it takes time to train dentists, and constituents need solutions as quickly as possible. In pursuing that, we will save people from turning up at A&Es and emergency dental appointments, which will come as a consequence of failing to deliver the basic services I know the Minister is keen to offer as quickly as possible.