Adrian Ramsay

It is a pleasure to co-sponsor the debate. In my constituency, registering with an NHS dentist as a new patient has become extremely difficult, if not impossible. East of England has the lowest number of NHS full-time equivalent dentists per head of population. When Ministers say that the system is improving, I ask them to picture the reality for patients in rural communities: people travelling miles, sometimes for hours, for appointments, ringing dozens of practices without success, and waiting until pain becomes unbearable before seeking urgent care. Leanne from Halesworth told me that it took three years to find an NHS dentist, while her children still cannot access NHS care. Another constituent, Michael from Dickleburgh, spent more than £2,000 on private treatment after being unable to access NHS treatment. Ministers have admitted that NHS dentistry has only enough budget for fewer than 40% of adults to be seen over a two-year period. The principle that an NHS service should be available to everyone is in tatters when it comes to dentistry. The Government have emphasised urgent appointments, but without additional workforce and funding, there would be fewer routine appointments, undermining the Government’s own prevention agenda. The British Dental Association estimates that the NHS dental budget has been cut by a third in real terms since 2010, reducing the allocation to 1.5% of the overall NHS budget. Further funding will clearly be needed to restore NHS dentistry as a universal service, yet when the Chancellor announced £29 billion of additional NHS funding in the spending review, the Minister indicated that none of that would likely be allocated to dental services. Delayed routine care leads to greater pain, more complex treatment and higher costs for both the patient and the NHS. Nowhere is that clearer than in children’s oral health. Tooth decay is the leading cause of hospital admission among five to nine-year-olds in England—a totally shocking fact Dentists do not grow on trees. I am delighted that, following many conversations, the University of East Anglia will begin training students from 2027. However, the truth is that, at UEA and nationally, not enough funded places are being provided. The previous Government promised a 40% increase in dental training places, but no funding was attached either for training those additional clinicians or for commissioning the NHS dentistry workforce that they would eventually join. The current Government have announced further expansion of dental school places, which I welcome, but the funding remains inadequate.