There will be ‘no future’ for NHS dentistry unless the workforce is sufficiently supported to deliver NHS dental care, according to a group of influential MPs.
The Public Accounts Committee (PAC), which examines the value for money of government projects, today released its report into the 2024 dental recovery plan.
It concluded that the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and NHS England had not yet done enough to address workforce issues, with the total number of dentists delivery NHS dental care in decline.
‘Without a workforce sufficiently supported to deliver NHS dental care, there will be no future for NHS dentistry and DHSC and NHSE have not yet done enough to address workforce issues,’ it said.
‘The total number of dentists delivering some NHS dental care is in decline and NHSE data showed that in March 2024 there were over 5,500 vacancies across the NHS dental profession with many of these going unfilled for over 180 days.
‘Whether the issue is a lack of dental professionals altogether, or a lack of dental professionals willing to take on NHS work, it is clear that there is a need to go further on efforts to support the dental workforce. This is particularly true for deprived, rural and coastal parts of the country where challenges in attracting dentists to work are particularly acute.’
The report also suggested that the dental recovery plan was ‘never going to deliver its headline ambition’ that everyone who needs to see an NHS dentist would be able to.
It said the plan’s promise to expand access to everyone who needed it was ‘never aligned’ to its actual target of 1.5 additional courses of treatment delivered. And that the plan also failed to deliver this target.
The committee said that NHS England and DHSC had ‘not undertaken the analysis needed’ to understand the cost of delivering NHS dental care and that their modelling of what might be achieved and how much it would cost ‘was wrong and it took too long to identify the error’.
It comes after a National Audit Office (NAO) report similarly found that the plan was not on track to deliver an extra 1.5 million courses of treatment in November.
The report called on policymakers to set out a realistic timetable if the current dental contract was to be replaced, including how they would consult on reforms. And that NHS England and DHSC should set out what steps can be taken to maintain patient access while a new contract was negotiated.
It also asked them to explain how they intend to support ICBs to innovate within their commissioning powers, while holding them to account for improving dentistry in their areas.
In February, ICBs were told to commission additional urgent dental appointments during the next financial year, funded from within dental allocations.
Responding to the report, Shiv Pabary, chair of the British Dental Association’s general dental practice committee said: ‘MPs have arrived at an inescapable conclusion, that tweaks at the margins have not and will not save NHS dentistry.
‘We’ve never budged from our view that government’s past and present have needed to go further and faster.
‘We’re ready to roll up our sleeves and start on the fundamental reform required to give this service a future.’
Also responding to the report, Cllr David Fothergill, and chairman of the Local Government Association’s community wellbeing board, said: ‘The Committee is right to highlight the challenges around access to NHS dentistry. No local authority area in the country has more than one dentist per 1,000 of the population who provides NHS treatment, with rural and more deprived areas more likely to have shortages in NHS dentists than their counterparts.
‘Communities face significant challenges with regard to NHS contractual arrangements and patient charges. There’s a significant call from across the political spectrum for a rapid and radical reform of NHS dentistry, the way it’s commissioned and provided.’
