A local health watchdog has declared that areas of Hampshire are dental deserts due to the amount of people in need of urgent treatment.

In response, NHS Hampshire and Isle of Wight is paying for three mobile dental clinics, which will bring dental services to coastal areas over an eighteen month period.

People experiencing dental pain, those on low incomes, and those who haven’t been to see a dentist in overt two years will receive priority appointments to the service.

However, Healthwatch Hampshire has pointed out that this is not enough to satisfy demand.

In the four weeks since the service was launched, 640 treatments have been administered. but all appointments on the Isle of Wight are fully booked up for the next three months. There are also concerns that some areas will not be covered by the mobile clinics at all.

Siobhan McCurrach of Healthwatch said:

“There are no new dentists in the middle and north of Hampshire offering new patients any access to NHS appointments.

“Only people in desperate need will get an emergency appointment – these are extremely difficult to find and probably a long way from where they are.”

Simon Cooper of Hampshire and Isle of Wight Integrated Care Board said:

“This was something we could put in as quick as we can to increase capacity. Longer term we do need to increase the number of dentists working within the NHS but we are working within the national contract.”

In February, the government launched its dental recovery plan, which aims to offer dentists incentives to deal with NHS patients.

My two penneth

This all seems like a sticking plaster over a bullet wound to me. For all the money that is being poured into short-term schemes such as this, would it not simply be more effective to look at more permanent solutions in crisis-hit areas?

Don’t get me wrong – it’s great that these 640 treatments have been administered so far, but I can’t help but wonder if such initiatives may be better having the money instead spent on actually solving the problem instead of papering over the cracks in the short-term.