Ian Gordon considers the impact of recent changes to the government’s pledge to provide 700,000 extra dental appointments – are the promises just a neat piece of spin dressed up as ‘listening’?
Let’s call this what it is: a reset of the scoreboard. The public commitment was sold as 700,000 additional urgent appointments – a safety net for patients in pain.
Shortly after such headlines as ‘1.8 million additional dental treatments’ and ‘nearly one million appointments commissioned’, NHS England has quietly redefined what the 700,000 means. It now counts all courses of treatment (COT), not urgent care specifically.
We know the current urgent scheme they claim was ‘commissioned’ is not working – as we told them it would not. The evidence is now available to confirm that it is not. This is not a minor technical adjustment. It’s a centrist government swapping a patient-facing promise (urgent access) for a back-end metric (COT volume) that is far easier to claim success against.
How has the government’s urgent care pledge changed?
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