NHS pledges to make improvements after people share experiences of dentistry
"More NHS dentists are required. And easier access to NHS dentists for people with pre-existing chronic physical and mental health problems.”
Why have Healthwatch put this report together?
People have shared their experiences to help what needs to happen next to improve services. This was done through the West Yorkshire Voice network, which includes Craven (as NHS services cover this area in North Yorkshire)
NHS England gave responsibility for planning and organising NHS dental services to what's known as the integrated care board earlier this year (May 2023). They are a statutory NHS organisation, responsible for developing a plan for meeting your health needs.
Who organises NHS dental services
There are two locally:
- NHS Humber and North Yorkshire Integrated Care Board.
- NHS West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board, which also covers Craven district (including Ribblesdale, Bentham, Ingleton, Settle, Gisburn, Grassington and Skipton).
What did Healthwatch do?
We worked together with Healthwatch in Bradford, Calderdale, Kirklees, Leeds and Wakefield and prepared a report on access to NHS dentistry, along with a video highlighting people's experience that was shown at a care board meeting (below).
What about the rest of North Yorkshire?
We did a seperate piece of work for this. Find out what people have been telling us - and what is being done about it:
What did our dentistry report find out?
Unsurprisingly, Healthwatch highlighted "quite shocking feedback and statistics" from the past 10 years relating to people's experiences of NHS dentistry.
The report outlines how little has changed despite Healthwatch working hard to represent the patient voice: We have invested a huge amount of time in raising issues around dental access with NHS England, local dental committee, local dentists, the British Dental Association, local councillors, scrutiny committees, local MPs, and many more organisations and individuals.
We have persisted with a number of different initiatives and approaches, and have gathered feedback from thousands of people. We have taken the time to understand the widest range of perspectives and present the information in a constructive and competent way.
The report highlights gap in provision: Significant numbers of adults and children in West Yorkshire are unable to access routine NHS dentistry.
This puts them at greater risk of developing significant oral health issues and needing urgent and emergency dental treatment. West Yorkshire is one of the areas in the Yorkshire and Humber with the highest incidence of incisor caries in children aged 5.
"There simply are no NHS dentists taking on patients, so I haven’t had a dentist for 10 years. This has led to three emergency dental appointments over the last year and a tooth extraction due to abscess, which could have been prevented with regular checkups!"
We've called for three key adjustments in the delivery of NHS dentistry services:
- Patient centred, prevention focused dental care provision – we continue to be concerned that the current NHS dentistry contract proliferates an unacceptable attitude toward patients and their needs. We would like to see an uplift in funding and commissioning numbers, a contract that focusses on assisting NHS patients to prevent dental crises, through improved access to dental care and information about dental hygiene.
- A move away from a particular model of dental contracting, improving access for people with protected characteristics and complex dental needs – the current way of providing NHS dentistry incentivises providing care for people who are healthy, rather than offering assistance to those with more dental problems.
- Clear information about the availability of dental care – in West Yorkshire, it can be incredibly difficult to find an NHS dentist taking on NHS patients because transparent and easily accessed information about availability is not available.
Cathy Elliott, chairperson of the NHS West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board, said: "Healthwatch colleagues explained that dental and oral health is the number one area of concern highlighted by local people and communities. Learning about local people’s experiences about accessing an NHS dental appointment and urgent care reminded us how very important this area of health is for everyone and that improvements to services are needed.
"We want to ensure we do all we can to work together to address the challenges and concerns people face as well as keeping in view opportunities to improve."
Latest report
What is being done to improve dentistry?
- A range of recommendations has been approved that seek to improve dentistry, for both patients and the profession, including improving communications.
- A proposal has been developed to invest an additional £4.5m this year. This investment will continue to help access to urgent dental care for all people.
- Working to be more flexible when commissioning dental services to help prevent bad experiences and difficulties getting to see a dentist.
- Establishing a local working group, open to patients (including private dental users), people without an NHS dentist, educators, dentists, GPs and parents. This is an opportunity to have your say, share experiences, and influence the delivery of dental services. There is an online meeting on Tuesday 3 October 2023. Book your place.
- A frequently asked questions page has been set up to offer information to patients.
