NHS Dentistry is in crisis. I am hearing again and again from people living in towns like Rugby who have been living with dental pain, and are simply unable to get an NHS Dentist. They have followed all of the publicly available guidance but are getting nowhere, dosing up on painkillers to get by.
Dentistry is not simply about tooth decay. It also helps with the detection of conditions such as oral cancers which may, at the moment, remain undetected and become much more serious.
The longer term damage to the oral health of children and young people is also likely to be considerable, and must be part of the recovery plan. It is also important that oral hygiene is an integral part of the way our children grow and develop.
We need an emergency recovery plan for NHS dentistry so that the needs of those people living in places where there are currently no Practices taking NHS patients can be met.
The recovery plan must not simply be about dealing with current demand for services, it must also be about clearing the huge backlog of demand for dental treatments that is now developing.
Good dentistry makes such an important contribution to wellbeing, both physical and mental especially at a time like this. This is a crisis that will not wait any longer
Chris Bain 