Due to a withdrawal of proposed NHS funding, a shortfall in available dentists and practice hours may leave an untold number of patients without the ability to access an appointment for treatment.
According to this BBC report, some dentists undertaking NHS dental work were initially told that they could perform an extra 10% more NHS dental work this year due to shortfalls in practices elsewhere. This funding decision was then reversed by the NHS Integrated Care Boards (ICB) in December of last month.
This decision has been made due to financial pressures created elsewhere within the NHS.
Many dentists have already made the switch to doing purely private work, and a £450m underspend in the annual NHS dental care budget has occurred as a result.
A West Midlands Integrated care Boards spokesperson said:
“As a result of the financial pressures across the NHS this year, all integrated care boards were asked to review their financial plans to ensure we reach as close to a break-even position as possible.
“This funding is discretionary and is not a mandated contractual requirement as part of the dental contract.
“It is critical that we weigh this decision against others and come to a balanced view that factors in the needs of all of our citizens as well as our finite resources.
“We recognise this will be disappointing to dental colleagues and that we may need to support practices who are particularly affected.
My two penneth
As I have written about in a recent article, the rate at which NHS dental practices are converting to private dental surgery and not looking back has been on an alarming uptick in recent times.
Instances such as this where promised funding is withdrawn with very little notice will not only increase the rate at which dentists move away from NHS work, but will also create an enormous backlog of patients looking for dental care or being referred to remaining overworked practices because they can ill-afford to go private.
Once again, this is a shocking state of affairs for current day NHS dentistry, and unfortunately one I don’t see improving any time soon.