Make your voice heard to protect our dental health

It is perhaps not surprising that at a time when some people are being forced to choose between heating or eating that some are having to make regrettable decisions about dental care.

Today, the British Dental Association estimates one in four people are now holding off on oral healthcare or foregoing it entirely owing to its rising cost – a rising cost that is just one amongst many.

The warning from the professional body comes as NHS charges in England rise by some 8.5 per cent, taking the cost of a filling to more than £70.

It is a worrying challenge which faces Health Secretary Steve Barclay, and prospective future health secretaries because it is inevitable that what is building is a crisis likely to burden the NHS with emergency procedures later on.

Understandably, the BDA has suggested that any planned more price increases be paused whilst further thought is given to possible actions required to head-off a future crisis, one that is being exacerbated by a shortage of clinics around the country.

Only recently this newspaper has reported concerns about some communities having no access to dentistry at all in what the BDA is calling ‘dentistry deserts’ and a recent survey of NHS dentists revealed that as many as nine out of 10 practices were unable to take on new patients, regardless of the nature of the care required.

More government investment underpinned by a clear clinincal strategy, says the BDA, is urgently needed as it warns not only of a treatment crisis but also of widening health inequality. The professional body has said it believes that deepening unfairness is a price the current government is willing to pay in order to facilitate cuts to dentistry, but the general public will almost certainly not be willing to pay that price, and so we urge you to make your feelings known to your MP.