BDA: Ministers pedalling ‘magic beans’ on NHS 111 claims
NewsPosted by: Dental Design 8th April 2024
As new figures from the Labour Party indicate 5 million people called NHS 111 with dental problems in the last 5 years, the British Dental Association has stressed many callers will not have secured needed care.
Calls this year are reportedly at a an all-time high, at over 1,200,000. The professional body has warned there is no reliable data on how these calls translate into appointments, and has said ministers must stop portraying NHS 111 or NHS.uk as ‘easy’ solutions to secure access to care.
The BDA says the repeat claims made by ministers are consistently at odds with the lived experience of millions of patients.
Health Minister Maria Caulfield told GMB on 20 March that “we have a website you can type in your postcode it will show you where your nearest NHS Dentist is. If you go on now there are significantly more dentists seeing NHS patients. I would encourage people to go on to our NHS website and type in your postcode and it will show you your nearest dentist that’s being updated on a regular basis and from my experience of helping my own constituents.”
At the time just one practice in Caulfield’s Lewes constituency was listed as taking on new patients, but had a backlog, with no space for appointments till the second week of April.
Secretary of State for Health Victoria Atkins told the Health and Social Care Committee on 13 December: “If you are able to use the NHS app—or the 111 helpline in the most rural areas, where we have put in a little bit of extra funding, such as the South West—you can find other dentists and go to them.”
Almost the entire South West was and remains a ‘dental desert’ for new adult NHS patients.
Government data shows unmet need for dentistry is now at 1 in 4 of England’s adult population – over 12m people.
The recent ‘Recovery Plan’ for NHS dentistry was dubbed ‘unworthy of the title’ by the BDA. A recent poll of dentists in England by the BDA showed just 3% think the plan will result in their practice seeing more NHS patients. 43% believe the plan will actually lead to their practice seeing fewer NHS patients. Only 1% of respondents believe the plan is capable of meeting the government’s stated objective to provide NHS dental care to ‘all who need it’.
The Secretary of State has had to correct the official record after informing parliament the plan was funded by £200m in ‘new’ money. It is entirely funded by recycling underspends in the service’s £3bn budget, which has barely increased in a decade.
BDA Chair Eddie Crouch said: “What this data can’t tell you is how many callers walked away with an appointment. Ministers keep telling desperate patients to hit the phones or the NHS website and all will be well. On access to care the reality is Government is offering magic beans, not silver bullets.”
