Wes Streeting admits NHS dentistry ‘is at demise’s door’ as Mirror petition handed in at No10

A Mirror petition demanding NHS dentistry be rescued signed by a quarter of a million people has been handed in to Downing Street and discussed in the House of Commons.

The Government praised our Dentists for All campaign for “shining a light on the state of NHS dentistry” which it admits is “broken after years of neglect and has failed patients and staff for far too long”. Health Secretary Wes Streeting told the House of Commons NHS dentistry is at “death’s door”.

Our huge online petition entitled ‘Save NHS dentistry and make it fit for the 21st century’ has now been signed by 258,000 people. It was handed in at Downing Street by former NHS high street dentist Tom Thayer and patient Anthony Page, whose life was saved by a routine NHS dental check-up which detected his mouth cancer.

Sign our petition to save NHS dentistry and make it fit for the 21st century

Stephen Kinnock, Minister of State for Care, said: “I commend the Mirror ’s Dentists for All campaign, shining a light on the state of NHS dentistry – broken after years of neglect, and has failed patients and staff for far too long. We’ve heard deeply disturbing accounts of desperate patients being forced to take matters into their own hands because they were unable to get an appointment. This government is committed to rebuilding dentistry, but it will take time.”

Labour has promised to fulfil a key demand of the Mirror campaign and reform the NHS dental contract to encourage more dentists to offer NHS treatment.

Speaking nearby in Westminster, Mr Streeting told the Commons: “Today there are 1,399 fewer full-time equivalent GPs than in 2015, and NHS dentistry is at death’s door. This Government will fix the front door to the NHS. We’ve announced an additional £889 million in funding for general practice in 2025-26, the biggest boost in years, and started hiring an extra 1,000 GPs to the front line already.”

The Mirror campaign has been nominated for three national journalism awards after shining the spotlight on an NHS issue that affects many but had been ignored for years as the oral health of the nation worsened. It revealed 96% of dentists are not taking on new adult NHS patients and told horror stories of people ripping out their own teeth and going into debt to travel abroad for private treatment.

Later in the session on Tuesday, Liberal Democrat health spokeswoman Helen Morgan said: “Dentistry is obviously a key part of primary care and yet an estimated five million people in England have been left without an NHS dentist, and that’s why today a petition is being handed in at Downing Street signed by more than a quarter of a million people. We’ve moved on from the election but we don’t yet have a timetable on when the negotiations for a new NHS dental contract might begin and when the rollout of another 700,000 extra urgent appointments will begin.

“Can the Secretary of State confirm what the timetable is for those improvements and what the Government’s plans are specifically in relation to the new patient premium and offer assurances to dentists that any changes to the current model will be outlined in detail to them as soon as possible?”

Mr Streeting replied: “We are looking at two things, firstly, making sure we deliver what we said in our manifesto including the 700,000 urgent appointments, and we’re determined to deliver those as fast as we can. The Minister for Care is having discussions with the British Dental Association to that effect.

“He is also looking very closely, as am I, at the money that is already going into NHS dentistry, how that money could be better spent, and why it is that year after year, despite people’s teeth rotting to the extent that they’re having to pull them out themselves, or children are attending A&E to have their teeth pulled out, how it is that year after year we saw consistent underspends in the dentistry budget under our predecessors?”

The overall NHS dentistry budget for England has remained at around £3 billion for a decade but has seen a £1 billion real terms cut over this period due to inflation. It has become increasingly made up of the contribution from patient charges which have gone up by 45% in the last decade.

The NHS contract meant that tens of thousands of pounds could be clawed back from practices if they failed deliver the amount of treatments predicted due to lack of staff. This encouraged more dentists to go private.

Dentists for All campaign

Save NHS Dentistry petition

Sign our petition to save NHS dentistry and make it fit for the 21st century

Our 3 demands

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.

Have you had to resort to drastic measures because you couldn’t access an NHS dentist? Are you a parent struggling to get an appointment for a child? Email [email protected] or call 0800 282591

Our campaign sparked a huge response from readers who reported yanking out their own teeth, living on painkillers, driving 200 miles for an NHS dentist or travelling abroad to places as far away as India for cheaper private treatment.

One person handing in the petition was Tony Page, from Folkestone, whose life was saved by a routine NHS checkup. The 73-year-old was referred to hospital in 2014 after his dentist spotted an abnormality in his mouth. Within six weeks cancerous parts of his tongue and jaw had been removed.

The Mirror launched the campaign in conjunction with the British Dental Association (BDA) and campaigning platform 38 Degrees.

Eddie Crouch, chair of the BDA, which represents dentists, said: “The public and this profession have a simple message for the PM. The clock is ticking on NHS dentistry and this Government must make good on its promises. If reform is kicked into the long grass there won’t be a service left to save.”