ADG: Where is the new funding? Where are the new dentists?
ADG welcomes 700,000 urgent appointments, but queries ‘Who will carry them out and who is really footing the bill?’ An Association spokesperson explains.
The Association of Dental Groups (ADG) is encouraged by today’s Department of Health & Social Care (DHSC) announcement promising 700,000 additional urgent care dental appointments since it shows our profession’s voices are being heard: dentistry is in crisis in the UK and needs to be a priority.
The announcement marks the start of the Government delivering on the manifesto pledge to provide extra urgent and emergency dental appointments to address the crisis in NHS dentistry.
However, examination of the details reveals that there is none of the new funding that was promised pre-election. These urgent appointments will be covered by existing budgets that would have been allocated for routine care, and the announcement fails to provide any support to grow the dental workforce to enable the turnaround that UK dentistry needs.
ADG members, who run over 2,000 dental practices up and down the UK are now keen to see the details of this scheme designed to enable these 700,000 extra urgent care appointments. It is important to understand the funding plans to ensure that practices and dentists will not be forced to continue to subsidise this care from private income.
ADG does, however, support the Government’s prioritisation of the extra urgent care appointments being targeted at ‘dental deserts’ – areas where patients particularly struggle to access NHS dentists. The concept of ‘dental deserts’ is a phenomenon identified by the ADG in May 2022 in a report highlighting the recruitment crisis in NHS dentistry and the top 10 areas in England with the lowest number of NHS dentists per 100,000 population.
Neil Carmichael (top) Executive Chair, Association of Dental Groups said: “While the ADG recognises today’s pledges as some progress towards resolving the UK’s dentistry crisis, our Association’s concern is that the Government is leaning on dental practices to fund urgent and routine care through their businesses’ ‘mixed economy’ structure.
“Without proper reform, realistic funding and a focus on the inadequate dental workforce (remember, there are currently over 3,000 vacant dentist positions that we are unable to fill) we cannot hope to see significant progress in getting dentistry in the UK back on its feet in the near future.”
