Half of NHS dentists are full up, too

A SHORTAGE of dentists means half of NHS practices are not accepting new patients, a study found.

Some people have been left so desperate while waiting for an appointment they claim to have pulled out their own teeth.

The British Dental Association says there is an ‘ emerging crisis’ as patients are turned away and forced to pay privately or go without dental check-ups. An analysis of 2,500 dental surgeries listed on the NHS Choices website found 48 per cent had closed their lists to new adult patients, while two-fifths were refusing to register children.

The statistics were reported by the BBC, which spoke to Rebecca Brearey, from Dewsbury in West Yorkshire. She said she had ‘begged’ to see a dentist after trying to find one for four years but was told there was a two-year waiting list.

She said: ‘It’s got so bad that after taking paracetamol and alcohol I ripped my half-rotten teeth out.’

The latest figures from the health service’s data provider NHS Digital show just 51.4 per cent of adults in England saw an NHS dentist in the two years up to June 30, while more than 40 per cent of children had failed to get a check-up.

Henrik Overgaard-Nielsen, chairman of general dental practice at the British Dental Association, said: ‘Our patients are losing out because dentistry has been treated as a Cinderella service. Morale is at an alltime low, and many colleagues are now looking for the exit. In place of indifference we urgently require a coherent strategy and real commitment from government.’

NHS England said more than nine in ten people seeking an appointment could get one.

But Nazreen Akhtar, from Bradford, told the BBC it had taken five years to find a dentist in the city that would accept her two children.

She said: ‘My son Muhammad has been in a lot of pain – he’s had adult teeth growing over the top of his milk teeth ... I do feel let down by the NHS as we should be able to see a local dentist.’ An NHS England survey found 93 per cent of 800,000 people were able to get an NHS dentist when they needed one, with 2 per cent unable to remember.

However, of the two-fifths who had not tried for an appointment in the past two years, one in eight said they did not think they could get an NHS dentist. Tooth decay remains the leading cause of hospital admissions for five to nine-year- olds. Dentists say the crisis is placing huge pressures on GP and A&E services.

An NHS England spokesman said: ‘The latest NHS patient survey found that 95 per cent of people seeking a dental appointment were able to get one and the overall number of dentists offering NHS care is 3,800 higher than a decade ago.’

‘My son was in a lot of pain’