NHS Dentistry

Simon Lightwood Excerpts

Tuesday 9th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Simon Lightwood (Wakefield) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in today’s debate on such an important topic. Last year, I launched my “Save Wakefield’s Smiles” campaign to highlight the horrifying state of dentistry access across my constituency. I have had an avalanche of constituents contact me to share their heartbreaking experiences of trying to get an appointment in Wakefield.

With permission, I will briefly share two of those testimonials with the House. Anne is a 71-year-old pensioner entitled to free dental treatment, and she has been trying to get a dentist appointment for five years. She told me that she feels let down by this country. She says that she has worked all her life since she was 15 and paid into the system for her entire career, and now has to decide whether to heat her home or get her teeth seen to.

Steve says he has been waiting two years for an NHS dentist because he cannot afford the estimated £5,000 it would cost to fix his teeth privately. He says that the anguish he has experienced while waiting has severely impacted his mental health. Steve told me:

“I barely leave the house. I am too scared to change job because I worry no one wants to hire someone in desperate need of healthcare.”

Like Anne, Steve feels frustrated. He says that he does not think it is too much to ask to receive the care he pays his contributions towards.

Those are a handful of cases from my constituency, but I know that up and down the country, the story is the same. Nine out of 10 clinics in England do not have the capacity to take on new patients. Millions of our constituents simply cannot get an appointment, and this Tory Government have failed every single one of them. Perhaps most shockingly of all, one in 10 of our constituents now feel that they have no choice but to resort to their own DIY dentistry. What kind of country have we become? What sort of grim Dickensian dystopia have this shambolic Tory Government presided over, where people are pulling out their own teeth with pliers over a sink?

Colleagues will recall, I hope, my first ever question in Prime Minister’s questions last year. I pressed the Prime Minister on the national dental emergency. I looked him in the eye and told him how 25% of five-year-olds in Wakefield already have visible tooth decay. I told him how less than half of Wakefield’s children managed to get an NHS dentist appointment in 2022, and I told him how a constituent of mine had desperately telephoned every single dentist in Wakefield to find an appointment while his daughter cried in pain from her teeth, black with decay.

From the Prime Minister’s reply and follow-up letter to my question, you would honestly think he was living on a different planet. He boasted of the funding he is putting into NHS dentistry, boasted of the number of NHS dentists and boasted that he had made reforms to the NHS dental contract. In fact, the British Dental Association has stated that the Prime Minister’s boastful claims may have been inaccurate. I fear he may have inadvertently misled the House as a result. Indeed, the British Dental Association has been clear that it believes the Prime Minister “offered a grotesque misinterpretation” of his work to address the crisis. The Prime Minister may have promised a dentistry recovery plan last year, but months later nothing has been published and he has nothing to show for it.

The Prime Minister may have admitted last week that he is running scared of a May election, but we on the Opposition Benches could not be more ready to take our dentistry rescue plan to the British people. Labour will address the immediate crisis head-on by providing 700,000 more urgent dental appointments and recruiting new dentists to the areas most in need. To treat the long-term challenges, Labour will reform the dentistry contract, which is no longer fit for purpose in its current form. With a vital focus on prevention, Labour will introduce supervised toothbrushing in primary schools.

Unlike Government Members, who had a soft spot for announcing economy-crashing, uncosted policies under the previous Prime Minister, Labour has a dentistry rescue plan that would be fully funded by abolishing the non-dom tax status. We have an incredible, ambitious plan ready to go from day one of a desperately needed Labour Government. The Prime Minister may be scared of an election, but when I speak to my constituents and hear how badly we need to fix our public services, I know where I stand—bring it on.