Sad child sits in dental office on comfortable leather chair, holds cheek with hand, feels pain inside … [+]
Children are waiting more than a year for tooth extractions and other specialist dental procedures in parts of England, a survey has revealed.
About 12,000 children were waiting for community dental services at the start of the year, it says BBC News.
The worst average waiting time for operations under general anesthesia was 80 weeks – more than a year and a half – at a provider in Harrogate, a town in the north-east of the country.
Waiting times varied significantly in different parts of the country, with one provider in the Liverpool area averaging just three weeks.
These children are waiting for very serious procedures to be done in general practice. Many will be on the list for tooth extractions related to tooth decay, which can leave them in severe pain.
Dental appointments and procedures are free for children through the country’s National Health Service (NHS). Private dentistry is an alternative for patients who can afford it, but the industry faces its own shortcomings.
The British Dental Association (BDA) says NHS dental provision has been hit hard by the pandemic.
But Covid-19 is only one access factor. The number of dentists providing NHS services has also has fallen in recent years.
In some parts of the country, it can be extremely difficult to find an NHS dentist to register with.
Demand for services also varies geographically. A higher proportion of children need teeth removed in the north of England than in the rest of the country.
In some cases, charities have stepped in to provide dental check-ups in schools, the BBC reports.
“Government Indifference”
The BDA wrote an open letter to Health and Social Care Secretary Stephen Barclay in response to the findings.
Chairman Eddie Crouch said in a statement emailed to Forbes.com: “Children are waiting anxiously thanks to successive governments’ indifference to dentistry.”
He said year-long backlogs have emerged since before the pandemic, “because ‘prevention’ was more than just a buzzword.”
“It’s a perfect storm,” he added. “Dentists are losing the battle to solve these problems in the first place and are fighting for theater space when extractions are the only option.”
In response to the BBC investigation, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Social Care said: “We are working to improve access to NHS dental care — investing more than £3 billion a year in dentistry — and the number of children seen by its dentists NHS grew by 43.6% last year.
“We have increased the funding practices we receive for emergency care, to encourage dentists to provide more NHS treatment, and we are also taking proactive measures to improve children’s oral health, such as expanding water fluoridation schemes — which can significantly reduce number of children face caries. Further reforms are planned for this year.”
“Action Failure”
It’s not just children who struggle to access dental care. Just last week, the government’s Health and Social Care Committee called for permanent changes to funding as well as “fundamental reform” to protect NHS dental services.
Lawmakers on the committee heard evidence that some patients had their teeth removed while they waited in pain to access services.
Per the guardian, committee chairman and Conservative MP Steve Brine said: “Rarely has an inquiry been more needed than this one. To hear of someone in such pain and agony that they resorted to using pliers to pull their teeth shows the crisis in NHS dental services.
“We record in the strongest possible terms our concern for the future of NHS dental services and the patients who desperately need access to them.”
praising it committee recommendationschairman of the BDA’s general dentistry committee, Shawn Charlwood, said: “From reform to funding, the Commission has provided a handbook for saving NHS dentistry.
“The real question now is whether the government or the opposition are prepared to use it. Failure to act will doom this agency to oblivion.”
