NHS dental services need investment

Wadworth,

I WOULD venture to say that the Department of Health ( DoH) spokesperson quoted in your article ( Region hit by rise in cases of mouth cancer, The Yorkshire Post, November 24) has missed the point.

The spokesperson claims that they are committed to detecting more mouth cancers at an early stage and that every dentist is expected to fully assess their patient’s oral health and to look for the signs of cancer.

To the best of my knowledge and experience, dentists do indeed examine the soft tissues of the mouth during the checkup. It is not only a contractual obligation but one of professional standards. However, to benefit from such an examination, a patient has to be able to get an appointment with an NHS dentist and therein lies the problem.

Access to NHS dentistry has been an issue for many years and continues to be so.

Over 10 years ago, the DoH began a project to review the contract under which dentists provided services to the NHS. Dentists and the DoH recognised that the system introduced in 2005 did not generate a sufficient increase in access to NHS dentistry and did not encourage or reward dental practices for providing a preventative care approach.

However, and again to the best of my knowledge, NHS dentistry is still being delivered under the contractual terms introduced 15 years ago. I don’t know what has happened to this pilot project.

I think that the DoH should perhaps simply consider that NHS dental services need greater financial investment to enable more dental care professionals to be engaged. They would then be able to carry out more routine check- ups and hopefully detect greater numbers of oral cancer at an early stage.

From: Hilary Andrews, Nursery Lane, Leeds.

MY son, daughter- in- law, son- inlaw and grandson are all doctors working in the hospitals dealing with Covid patients.

They and their colleagues are all exhausted. I hope people can be really sensible over Christmas and not increase the workload of all those in the NHS.

The vaccine is just around the corner, can’t we all be patient and meet up when it’s safe?