“The South West region has the highest levels of variation in oral health outcomes, demonstrating a need to rethink how we approach policies to improve oral health outcomes”

The pandemic has opened our eyes to the link between inequality and health outcomes – with socio-economic inequalities clearly linked to poorer outcomes.

Oral health is no exception, with inequalities being exacerbated by the pandemic.

At the same time, the dental industry is facing growing waiting lists while simultaneously dealing with an exodus of dental professionals from the NHS – data from the Department of Health found that almost 1,000 dentists working in 2,500 roles across England and Wales left the NHS last year.

In the South West region, where my constituency is based, there are worse oral health outcomes than average in England, according to the PHE data analysed by the Wrigley Oral Healthcare Programme. The region also has the highest levels of variation in outcomes, demonstrating a need to rethink how we approach policies to improve oral health outcomes.

Prevention will clearly need to play a key role in this. With the dental industry facing huge pressures, we must look to solutions to prevent the situation from worsening and support communities across the nation to look after their teeth.

In my constituency, there have been some excellent initiatives driving this agenda, with the Peninsula Dental School running programmes to educate children around a healthy dental routine. There are ongoing community engagement initiatives to promote the importance of looking after your oral health, including excellent work by Plymouth University to meet the dentistry needs of our most vulnerable and least accessible parts of society. Initiatives like these will be crucial to tackle oral health inequalities in the coming years, while we support the dental industry to recover.

We owe it to our constituents to ensure that their oral health doesn’t take a further hit and that areas with worse outcomes are supported to improve. My party talks about levelling up, but it’s time to put that into action – health disparities, including those in oral health, must be addressed.