Rise In Dental Access Figures Reported

Mon, 02 Mar 2009

The number of people with access to an NHS dentist increased slightly last year, according to latest figures.

The statistics, published by the Information Centre for health and social care, revealed that the number of patients who saw an NHS dentist in the previous two years rose by 99,000 (0.4 per cent) between June and September 2008.

Just over 27 million adults and children managed to get an NHS appointment in the year to the end of September, equivalent to 52.9 per cent of the UK population.

However, the number of patients seen was still 1.1 million (3.9 per cent) fewer than the 28.1 million seen in the two-year period prior to the introduction of the new NHS dental contract in March 2006, which caused many practitioners to go private.

The figures also showed that NHS dentists carried out more 400,000 (2.4 per cent) courses of treatment in England between June and September last year compared with the same quarter in 2007.

Barry Cockcroft, chief dental officer for the Department of Health, said: "This is good news for patients. Access to NHS dentistry is improving following record investment, expanding workforce and a continuing increase in the amount of services being bought by the NHS ."

"Because the access data is retrospective, we are only just beginning to see evidence of the growth in NHS dental services that has been going on over the past couple of years."

He added: "We want to go further to ensure that every person who wants to access an NHS dentist is able to do so and have invested a record £2 billion in dentistry and set up a national access programme to help the NHS deliver this."

However, shadow health minister Mike Penning argued: "These figures represent a minuscule movement on patient access which runs contrary to the evidence we're receiving from the public."

"There remain at least 1.1 million fewer people who have lost access to their NHS dentist under the government's ludicrous new dental contract."
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