Helen challenges Health Secretary over plans to save NHS dentistry

Helen Morgan has challenged Health Secretary Wes Streeting over the Labour Government’s plans to save NHS dentistry.

This comes as a petition of more than 250,000 signatures was handed into Downing Street earlier this week by the British Dental Association, urging the Government to save NHS dentistry.

Leading figures from the BDA have warned that the service is now in a more fragile state than it was at the time of the General Election. Their calls have been echoed by North Shropshire MP Helen Morgan, who serves as the Liberal Democrat spokesperson on Health and Care.

It comes as practices in North Shropshire have handed back NHS contracts due to not being able to balance their books and after one man in Oswestry pulled his own tooth out with pliers after six months in agony not being able to find an NHS dentist.

Last year, Helen ran a petition of her own locally, calling for a focus on increased appointments in rural areas like North Shropshire. Over 1,000 constituents signed this before it was handed into Parliament.

Helen challenged the Secretary of State to deliver the changes needed to save NHS dentistry, asking him to confirm when people would see progress from the Government.

Helen Morgan, Liberal Democrat MP for North Shropshire, said, “Dentistry is obviously a key part of primary care, and yet an estimated 5 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.”

Wes Streeting MP, Secretary of State for Health, 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. My Honourable Friend, the Minister for Care, is having discussions with the BDA 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 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 and 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.

“We're determined to give dentists the tools to do the job so that patients can see a dentist when they need one.”