NHS dentistry: Government must look to its conscience to fix NHS dentistry
A weeks-long special investigation by The Yorkshire Post published today reveals the true extent of the deterioration of NHS dentistry provision across the county and wider country: in short, were it a house, not only would the roof have fallen in but the entire property would have been razed to the ground and the foundations turned to rubble.
In truth, what this investigation reveals is this: there is no NHS dentistry service. Either you can afford to pay, or you suffer in silence. Our reporter discovered evidence of people extracting their own teeth with run-of-the-mill pliers; people unwilling to smile for fear of stigmatisation; in some cases unwilling to leave the house owing to a feeling of shame. That the single biggest cause of children aged five to nine being admitted to hospital for treatment is for the extraction of rotten teeth is more than a national embarrassment, it is disgraceful.
During the course of the investigation, we discovered instances of Ukrainian nationals having fled their war-torn homeland, forced to fleetingly return in order to receive dental care. That alone is evidence enough of the extent of the dilapidation of NHS dentistry in the UK.
Dr Mark Green’s contribution to our findings, depressing though his experience of NHS dentistry has been during the best part of the last 30 years, suggests the incumbent Government may well need to respond not simply owing to the crisis but out of conscience, because Dr Green believes the insidious demise of NHS dentistry can be traced back to when New Labour, in 2006, meddled with the contracts dentists held.
And so, today, this newspaper is calling upon Sir Keir Starmer and his ministers, whether it is out of conscience or crisis, to formulate a plan to guide the country back to a time when it could be proud of its smile, before any more children are hospitalised.