Patients in the town of Rutland will have to wait until 2025 for NHS dental appointments to become available, it has been revealed.
According to Healthwatch Rutland, the process to procure a new dentist to increase appointments in Rutland is ‘moving slowly’, with new provision ‘realistically expected to begin in 2025’.
At a meeting of the Joint Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee for Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland (LLR), Healthwatch Rutland chair Janet Underwood talked about how private dentistry is unaffordable for many people in the area.
The watchdog added that Rutland has the lowest rate of access to NHS dentistry of all the areas of LLR, with just one in five people undergoing dentistry funded by the NHS in the second half of 2023.
In Autumn 2023, Healthwatch carried out a survey on Rutland patients. Key findings were published earlier this year and included:
- Almost three in five people (59%) were unable to get an NHS dental appointment in the last 12 months
- Most people attend a dentist locally – 61% of respondents travelled less than five miles
- Some people feel that they have no choice but to attend private surgeries even though they cannot afford to do so.
NHS dental appointment troubles
Access issues continue to impact many across the UK. A new survey has found that nearly one in four (24%) people tried and failed to get an NHS dental appointment in the last two years.
In addition, when asked why they were unable to get one, most (42%) said their practice was not taking new NHS patients. A third (36%) also said there were no appointments available.
Out of those who had not tried to access an NHS dental appointment, most (27%) said they prefer to go to a private dentist. In addition, a quarter (25%) said they thought they would not be able to get one.
Conducted by Broadstone, the NHS England GP Patient Survey 2024 asked the public about its experience using or accessing GP, pharmacy and dental services.
Overall, it found that 69% had a ‘good’ experience of NHS dentistry over the past two years.
Brett Hill is head of health and protection at Broadstone. He said: ‘As a new Labour administration takes power, these figures are yet another illustration of the crisis in public access to crucial primary care services like dentistry.
‘Oral health is a key pillar of general health with dental problems posing a risk to wider health, from loss of sleep and heightened physical and mental stress to increasing the likelihood of more severe conditions like cardiovascular disease.’
Follow Dentistry.co.uk on Instagram to keep up with all the latest dental news and trends.
