Why is there a shortage of NHS dentists?
You live in east Cheshire and are looking for a dentist. You enter your postcode into a helpful page on the NHS website and up pop 25 local practices. Underneath 17 of them is written in red: “This dental practice is not accepting any new NHS patients.” In 1999, Tony Blair pledged that everyone would have access to NHS treatment by 2001. Four years after that deadline, getting someone to deal with a pain in the mouth can still be a pain in the neck. Last week, ministers announced that the number of NHS dentists had risen by 1,100 in the past year, 216 of them recruited in Poland. The same day, it was reported that 150 people queued at surgeries in Carlisle and Penrith to register as private patients after a dentist ended all NHS work. So what’s going on? The British Dental Association says dentists cannot cope with the demands made on them. Most see NHS and private patients but while in 2000, 12% of dentists asked said they were not taking on new NHS patients; this year that rose to 15
