More than 90% of adults without an NHS dentist who tried to make an appointment in the last month were unable to, according to the latest Office of National Statistics (ONS) figures.
Of the 490 patients who were not registered with an NHS dentist and tried to make an appointment during the period, only 9.4% were successful.
During the election campaign, the Labour party pledged to ‘save NHS dentistry’ and provide an extra 700,000 urgent dental appointments per year ‘straight away’.
Chair of the British Dental Association, Eddie Crouch, previously told Healthcare Leader that ‘dental deserts’, where NHS dentists are not taking on new patients, were now ‘universal’ and no longer confined to rural locations. And, it has previously been reported that ‘hundreds of thousands of people’ now flock to hospitals or GPs each year for treatment because of the lack of dental care.
The majority (77.4%) of those unable to access care in these latest statistics did nothing, with only 10.7% seeking private dental care, according to the health insight survey figures on the experiences of NHS healthcare services in England.
Just over 1% (1.3%) went to A&E, while 1.2% went to their GP practice. The remaining 9.4% did ‘something else’.
Of the 104,109 people recorded in the data between 23 July and 15 August, just over half (52.1%) said they had an NHS dentist, with 34.7% saying they had a private dentist. A further 13.5% said they did not have a dentist.
The figures also looked at patient experiences of GP practices, finding that 94.3% of the 54,662 adults who attempted to make contact with their GP practice in the last 28 days were successful, with 76.8% of those able to make contact on the same day.
The modern general practice access plan was intended to address the struggle to contact GPs, with the aim of ensuring patients are no longer asked to call back another day to book an appointment.
However, 6.2% of patients who contacted their GP practice were never aware when their request would be managed after making contact.
Just over two thirds (67.4%) of adults who tried to contact their GP practice said their experience was good or very good.
Patients were more positive about pharmacy services, with 85% of the 74,171 adults using pharmacy services saying they were ‘very satisfied’ or ‘satisfied’ with the service.
But, of those who had received an NHS prescription (71,174), 20.1% had a problem obtaining it.
It follows the Darzi review which found that the NHS was in a ‘dire state’ following a decade of austerity, being ‘starved’ of capital investment and the impact of the Covid pandemic.
