Shadow Minister to tell dentists “the cavalry is coming” with Labour
Preet Kaur Gill, Labour’s Shadow Primary Care and Public Health Minister, has presented Labour’s plan to rescue and reform NHS dentistry at the UK’s largest dentistry conference. The shadow minister spoke at 12pm on Friday 17th May.
The British Dental Conference and Dentistry Show is taking place at the Birmingham NEC, with a few thousand dentists set to attend. Eddie Crouch, British Dental Association Chair, will also speak after Gill.
The theme of the session is ‘NHS dentistry in election year’. Preet Kaur Gill laid out Labour’s plan to rescue NHS dentistry from its immediate crisis and let dentists know “the cavalry is coming” to deliver wider reform to the outdated dental contract.
Preet Kaur Gill told dentists that the “future of NHS dentistry will be on the ballot paper” at the next election, and that access to a dentist is “just as integral as your access to a GP.”
She referenced having met patients who’ve had to wait three years to get seen, by which time half their teeth had rotted beyond repair, cancer patients whose treatment has been delayed because they couldn’t get an appointment when they needed one and children in local schools who are too self-conscious to smile.
The event comes as the latest NHS statistics show that nearly 400,000 fewer children were seen by a dentist within the last 12 months in England, compared to 5 years before, and over 4 million fewer adults were seen in the last two years compared to 5 years ago – a 19% decrease.i
Across the country 8 in 10 dental practices are not taking on new NHS patients, and in some areas, 99% of practices have shut their doors. Many people have also resorted to pulling their teeth out with pliers after being unable to access a dentist’s appointment, with 1 in 10 people having attempted so-called DIY dentistry. Tooth decay is also the number 1 reason young children end up in hospital.
Preet Kaur Gill set out Labour’s rescue plan to fund 700,000 extra urgent appointments each and every year, introduced a targeted recruitment scheme to encourage hundreds of new dentists to left behind areas with a £20,000 incentive, as well as a supervised toothbrushing scheme in schools.
The rescue plan is fully funded, with new money found from clamping down on tax dodgers and closing non-dom tax loopholes.
Preet Kaur Gill also outlined Labour’s commitment to ensuring that the NHS is and can be somewhere where dentists build their career.
She said, “I’ve seen how difficult it has been for dentists in the past few years. You struggled through the pandemic, when infection control policies made it almost impossible for you to hit your UDA targets. And I’ve seen the exodus of dentists to the private sector.”
Labour has committed to reforming the outdated dental contract to shift the focus to prevention, retain NHS dentists and ensure NHS dentistry is there for all who need it.
Preet Kaur Gill, Shadow Minister for Primary Care and Public Health, said: “The Conservatives have left NHS dentistry to rot. Lack of access to NHS dentistry has serious consequences for patients, and rotting teeth is now the number one reason that young children are admitted to hospital. NHS dentistry won’t survive five more years of Tories. Labour has a plan to rescue our NHS and reform the service so that it’s fit for the future.”
Eddie Crouch, Chair of the British Dental Association, said: “It’s heartening to see a firm commitment to fix this broken service. This really shouldn’t be a partisan issue. Millions need NHS dentistry to have a future, and that requires real reform, not the tweaks at the margins we’ve seen from Government.”
Reference
i NHSBSA English Contractor Monthly General Dental Activity data for February 2024 and February 2019: https://opendata.nhsbsa.net/dataset/english-contractor-monthly-general-dental-activity
