To consider the following Motion in the names
of Councillors N Turner, A Pinnock,
Burke, Marchington, Lawson, Eastwood and Wilkinson.
This Council
notes:
- There is an emerging crisis in
dental care in England, with 48% of dental practices not accepting
new adult patients and 40% not accepting new child patients on the
NHS;
- According to Public Health England,
just over £3bn is spent each year on providing NHS dental
care, which represents 3% of the total NHS budget in England;
- The issue of lack of access to NHS
dentistry is conspicuous across West Yorkshire. In Kirklees, it is
estimated that 96% of dental surgeries will not take on new NHS
patients;
- The NHS Choices website, which lists
dentists and provides details of those accepting new NHS patients.
In the Huddersfield/valley area there is only 1 dentist practice
accepting new NHS patients, but in many other areas of Kirklees,
including Cleckheaton, Dewsbury,
Mirfield and Denby Dale, no provision
is available. Significant numbers of residents are struggling to
find NHS dentists for routine NHS treatment;
- The disparity and unequal
access to NHS dentists across Kirklees, with NHS dental spending
considerably less in North Kirklees. For instance, in 2015, NHS
dental spending in Greenhead ward was an estimated 14 times higher
than in Dewsbury West. The charity, Dentaid, provided a mobile dental unit and offered
free treatment at several locations in North Kirklees earlier this
year;
- In March 2017, NHS Digital revealed
that 1 in 3 children in Kirklees have not seen an NHS dentist in
the past 12 months, while approximately 29% of 5-year-olds in
Kirklees have decayed, filled or missing teeth;
- The work being undertaken by
patients’ rights charity, Healthwatch Kirklees and the West Yorkshire Local
Dental Network, in undertaking research and working on ways to
improve access to local dental services;
- NHS England North has implemented a
pilot access project within Kirklees and Bradford, while an Access
Strategy Group will consider access to NHS dental services across
Yorkshire and Humber, to prioritise areas of highest need of
additional services and to maximise current provision.
This Council
believes:
- Dental health is essential to the
wellbeing of local people. However, a shortfall of NHS dentists is
resulting in many Kirklees residents being unable to access
treatment, forcing some to use A&E;
- Many people are unable to afford
private care. Everyone should be able to access good-quality NHS
dental services and should not be forced to travel for care;
- The figures around lack of access to
NHS dentists across Kirklees and elsewhere in the country are not
inevitable; rather, they are a consequence of ministers trying to
keep costs down. The system for funding NHS dentistry is not
working;
- There is a lack of information
available to patients in Kirklees and elsewhere about the
availability of NHS dentists;
- The lack of dentists accepting new
NHS patients is symptomatic of a wider failure to provide adequate
facilities and infrastructure in Kirklees at the same time as more
houses are being built and the population is increasing;
- The current NHS dental contract in
England is not based on need and accessibility and is not
fit-for-purpose. The current dental contract sets quotas on patient
numbers and does not enable dentists to take on more NHS patients.
The contract is bad for dentists and for patients – in
Kirklees and across the country.
This Council
resolves:
- To call on the Department of Health
to undertake an urgent and comprehensive review of dentistry across
West Yorkshire and Kirklees and to address the widening
inequalities in provision;
- To call on the Department of Health
to review and reform the NHS dental contract system, so that it is
predicated on the need to change the focus of dental service
provision with a focus on prevention and patient demand.