In an attempt to stretch services further, NHS dental patients with good dental hygiene in Derbyshire are to be advised to attend their dental surgeries less frequently.

A meeting hosted by Derbyshire County Council came to the above conclusion when it was revealed that there have now been seven dental service contract terminations in the Derbyshire area since November 2022.

Bamford, Bolsover, Erewash, Goyt Valley, Hadfield, Ripley and Derby and Derbyshire Domiciliary care (care in the home) are the ones terminated, which means that some areas are now blighted by at least partial NHS dental care shortages. The primary reason for the termination was regarding funding shortfalls.

Regarding the lack of available dental care, Ripley Councillor Paul Moss said:

“Ripley now has no NHS dental practices and I think it is fair to say that there is very little NHS dental provision across Amber Valley as a whole.

“There are a number of residents who have contacted me who are very concerned about this, not necessarily for themselves, but for the children.”

In areas affected, NHS leadership is looking to spread funding out better to deal with dental care requirements where the service shortfalls have occurred, if interest is shown. This would be on a basis of which areas require the most funding to provide services in the places that require them the most, for the biggest number of patients.

Councillor Christine Dale (Shirebrook and Pleasley), lamenting the proposal, said:

“We seem to have gone backwards in terms of progress. Dentists used to be freely available.”

According to the story, NHS heads in Derbyshire hope to win over new dental services in the county with “more attractive one-year contracts, and through increasing payments per patient for people who have not received dental treatment for two years or more.”

As well as improving services in the area where dental practices had closed, there would also be a focus on making dental care more freely available to those in care homes, and also focus on fewer people needing to turn up at hospital A&E where alternative treatment could be offered.

The meeting also discussed increasing the number of services and treatments offered by dental therapists and dental hygienists qualified to do so, to help to cover the backlog of patients. This may include administering fillings and pulling baby teeth.

My two-penneth

This feels like another one of those ‘slippery slope’ issues to me – getting regular attendees to do so less frequently to allow those who can’t get appointments to attend?

Also, if they can’t win over dentists now – what happens when the majority of task start being delegated to dental hygienists and therapists at presumably lesser cost and this becomes the norm?

There are so many questions on this subject that require satisfactory and reassuring answers, and at this stage I am not convinced that we will get them.