Labour requires ‘ethical campaign’ in opposition to ‘Dickensian’ horrors of dental system

Stopping children turning up in hospital needing rotten teeth removed is a “moral crusade” for the Government, a senior minister has said.

Minister for care Stephen Kinnock lambasted the “Dickensian” situation as the most shocking thing he has discovered since “looking under the bonnet” after taking office. He appeared on the Mirror’s Dentists for All campaign fringe event at Labour Party Conference which heard there are now 13 million Brits living with teeth problems they cannot get treated.

NHS data shows tooth extractions are the most common reason for hospital admission for five-to nine-year-olds. Mr Kinnock said: “It is an utter disgrace. That is Dickensian… and it is also vitally important in terms of things like school days missed. This is a moral crusade.”

Child tooth extractions due to decay increased by 17% last year with 48,000 children and young people having teeth removed in 2022/23. An expert panel all called for an end to the practice at the event marking the Mirror campaign demanding everyone is given access to an NHS dentist by restoring funding and reforming the flawed dental contract.

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Everyone should have access to an NHS dentist

More than 12 million people were unable to access NHS dental care last year – more than 1 in 4 adults in England. At the same time 90% of dental practices are no longer accepting new NHS adult patients. Data from the House of Commons Library showed 40% of children didn’t have their recommended annual check-up last year.

Restore funding for dental services and recruit more NHS dentists

The UK spends the smallest proportion of its heath budget on dental care of any European nation. Government spending on dental services in England was cut by a quarter in real terms between 2010 and 2020. The number of NHS dentists is down by more than 500 to 24,151 since the pandemic.

Change the contracts

A Parliamentary report by the Health Select Committee has branded the current NHS dentists’ contracts as “not fit for purpose” and described the state of the service as “unacceptable in the 21st century”. The system effectively sets quotas on the maximum number of NHS patients a dentist can see as it caps the number of procedures they can perform each year. Dentists also get paid the same for delivering three or 20 fillings, often leaving them out of pocket. The system should be changed so it enables dentists to treat on the basis of patient need.

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Shawn Charlwood, chair of the British Dental Association’s general dental practice committee, said: “ Hospitals are spending tens of millions of pounds a year on dental extractions. Most, if not all, dental disease is completely preventable. We have been trying to do dentistry for as cheap as possible for far too long. Millions of people are being failed by a system that is not fit for purpose.”

“As a nation we could have an NHS dental budget that’s probably two to three times bigger and still not deliver all of the dental healthcare that our comparators in Europe deliver. We currently spend a lower portion of our NHS budget on dentistry than any European nation.”

The overall NHS dentistry budget for England has remained at around £3 billion for a decade despite inflation and increased demand. But patients have been contributing more through inflation-busting hikes in NHS fees. Their NHS payment contract means dentists get paid the same for delivering three or 20 fillings, often leaving them out of pocket. More are deciding to only see private patients. As few as one in three adults are now getting NHS dental check-ups to tackle problems early before teeth extractions are necessary.

Labour has announced plans to introduce supervised teeth brushing at schools but the details of who will do this are still to be ironed out. Also many young children already have tooth decay by the time they start school.

Thea Stein, leading expert and chief executive of the Nuffield Trust health thinktank, said: “It is truly Dickensian that small children are having to be in hospital, having a general anaesthetic, to have a tooth removed. And if you are living in a poorer area of our country that’s two and a half times more likely.”

Mr Kinnock said the government would reform the “dysfunctional” dentists’ payment contract and would consider a student loan forgiveness scheme to help stem the exodus of them from the NHS. The son of former Labour leader Neil Kinnock has taken up an expanded ministerial brief since the General Election which includes everything from GPs to social care and dentistry.

He said: “Every single aspect of the brief is in a state which I would more or less describe as ‘broken’ so it’s difficult to sort of pick out one particular thing that shocked me, but I would say that statistic about children ending up in A&E for teeth extractions is arguably the most shocking.”

He added: “In the end, what is the electorate going to judge us by at the next general election? They’re going to judge us by our actions in terms of delivering the outcomes that make their lives better… we’ve got to protect our kids. Can I promise that we will reduce the number of children going into A&E because they’ve got to have rotting teeth removed down to zero by the end of this Parliament. I can’t make that promise.”

“But I can absolutely tell you that that is our ambition and we will move heaven and earth to make that work, because I think it’s a moral crusade. It is a completely and utterly unacceptable situation in the UK in 2024 that there are children going into A&E to have rotting teeth removed.”