A proposal for the government to provide the public with a £150 voucher towards private dental care would ‘mean the end of NHS dentistry’, according to dental experts.
Think tank Policy Exchange called for the government to implement a scheme to provide £150 vouchers redeemable at private dental practices to ‘end the NHS dental crisis’.
However, the British Dental Association (BDA) said this would require the government to more than triple the dental budget. It therefore warned that it would be an ‘extremely inefficient way of improving access’.
As the vouchers would only be valid in private practices, the BDA said £150 would not even cover 10% of a set of dentures. It concluded that the scheme ‘would likely leave the most vulnerable unable to afford care, whilst subsidising those already paying for private dentistry’.
BDA chair Eddie Crouch said: ‘Calls for a voucher system in NHS dentistry come with the sound of barrels being scraped. NHS desperately needs investment, but this policy would not end dental deserts. It could easily mean spending more money on less access.
‘A struggling service urgently requires real reform and sustainable funding. We don’t need distractions, or detours into ideological comfort zones.’
Are there ‘hidden costs’ to private dentistry?
This comes as chancellor Rachel Reeves has ordered a market study into private dentistry. The minister wrote to the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), urging it to investigate the costs and practices of the private dental sector.
In a statement, Reeves said ‘hidden costs, lack of transparency and overtreatment’ had impacted families in need of dental treatment.
Simon Thackeray, of the British Association of Private Dentistry (BAPD), saidd: ‘The proposal for the CMA to investigate private dentistry fees is deeply misguided.
‘Private dentistry has not caused the access crisis, inflationary pressure or workforce shortages. The root cause is decades of political neglect of NHS dentistry.’
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