NHS patients struggle to see a dentist in Brighton and Hove

Mark Ridgeway made the admission as he answered questions from councillors who were angry about how hard it was for NHS patients to see a dentist in Brighton and Hove.

The problem was not confined to Brighton and Hove – but Mr Ridgeway was asked to appear before councillors again to explain the dire situation.

They made their request because he was unable to answer many of their questions at a meeting of Brighton and Hove City Council’s health overview and scrutiny committee at Hove Town Hall on Wednesday.

Labour councillor Anne Pissaridou said that NHS dentistry did not seem to exist any more. She said that it was a stark question but asked: “Are dental services in crisis?”

Mr Ridgeway said: “Yes. We are doing all we can to try to mitigate it. It is very difficult as we are coming back from a place when practices, for a period of time, months, were working at 20 per cent of capacity.”

At the start of the coronavirus pandemic, he said, surgeries were closed except for the most urgent cases. NHS dentists were subsequently required to work for 20 per cent of their contracted hours.

Their hours had increased over the past year and they were now working at 95 per cent capacity, he said.

But, Mr Ridgeway said, a significant backlog would take many months to clear before services would return to pre-pandemic levels.

As more questions went unanswered, Labour councillor Clare Moonan, who chairs the committee, said that Mr Ridgeway should come back with data and detail because dental services were a “time bomb”.

Another Labour councillor, Amanda Grimshaw, said that she was horrified when discussing dentistry with a group of women on the day of the meeting.

She said: “I heard one of them say she was pulling her own teeth out. I asked why and she said when she went to her practice, she was told she was deregistered.

“She had an infected tooth and had to present at A&E, putting extra pressure on services at the hospital.

“When you’re from a ‘just managing’, the dentist is a luxury. Now we’re in an extended crisis for the poor and those on low incomes. What is the point in having free dental care when dentists are not accepting NHS patients!”

Green MP Caroline Lucas has raised the issue in parliament

A new dental surgery opened in Moulsecoomb last year to increase NHS capacity but it had never been fully staffed, Mr Ridgeway said.

Cllr Grimshaw said that another resident of her ward, Moulsecoomb and Bevendean, and her family, were removed from a dental practice list because they had not attended during the pandemic. But during that time, the practice had been closed or dealing with emergency cases only.

And they could not get back on the list because the practice was no longer taking NHS patients.

Mr Ridgeway agreed that it did not sound fair but said that he could not comment on individual cases.

He said that dentists did not register patients in the same way as family doctors although they did hold a list.

Independent councillor Nikkie Brennan shared her concerns that dentistry had become a for-profit business similar to the American health system.

She spoke about her son’s experience when he was offered a private appointment rather than an NHS appointment.

Mr Ridgeway said that this was down to “capacity” on a given day.

Green councillor Marianna Ebel said that it had been almost as hard to book an NHS appointment before the pandemic when it took her three months from calling to see a dentist.

She said: “It is ridiculous. Not everything is an emergency but it needs to be fixed if you’ve got a broken tooth or something.”

Cllr Moonan asked Mr Ridgeway if he shared councillors’ concerns that access to dentistry had fallen further during Covid.

She said: “The service wasn’t fit for purpose before the pandemic. The pandemic has made it worse. I am very sceptical whether it will recover to the levels it was at before but time will tell.”

Mr Ridgeway said that he was concerned and heard daily about people unable to access the care they needed and patients resorting to their own treatment more than they should.

Former Green councillor Geoffrey Bowden, currently the interim chair of Healthwatch Brighton and Hove, said that the watchdog was making as much noise as possible about the lack of access.

He said that, since December 2020, dentistry was the subject of the biggest number of inquiries received by the organisation.

He said: “In November, we rang around all practices and found none were offering NHS treatment to new patients … It does not surprise me at all what has been said in this chamber.”

Mr Bowden said that the lack of NHS dental care discriminated against people in financial difficulty – and that Healthwatch had published a detailed report about dentistry last year.

The Green MP for Brighton Pavilion Caroline Lucas had asked a parliamentary question on behalf of Healthwatch Brighton and Hove.

And she had called on the government to ensure that NHS dental practices kept their details up to date.