No more half measures, the decay in NHS dentistry needs to be tackled now - Judith Cummins

It is worth noting that the Beveridge report, in its proposition for universal access to NHS dentistry, was published by a multi-party coalition Government.

The crisis in NHS dentistry deserves the same cross-party attention that it was afforded 80 years ago, because the system has decayed: access has fallen to an historic low, and inaction over the past 13 years has caused untold damage.

There can be no more half measures or excuses. Now is the time to establish a new preventive dental contract that is fit for the 21st century.

The words of my campaigning over the past eight years now serve as a compendium of forecasting doom. In 2016, I warned of a mounting crisis and drew the Government’s attention to a digital report warning that half of dentists were thinking of leaving the profession.

Between 2017 and 2019, I warned that 60 per cent of dentists were planning to leave NHS dentistry. In 2020, after years of repeated warnings, I once again informed the Government that 58 per cent of the UK’s remaining dentists were planning on moving away from NHS dentistry within five years. The Government once again fudged and ignored, and more than 1,000 dentists left the NHS.

This NHS dental crisis has been a devastating slow-motion car crash of the Government’s own making, yet year after year, Minister after Minister, they have assured me of their commitment to reform.

Last year, when I pressed the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Maria Caulfield, for action on this matter, she informed me that she had started work on a dental contract reform.

However, after 13 years in power, the Government is once again starting with an announcement of a plan to publish a new plan to improve access to NHS dentistry—a plan for a plan.

I can only hope that sustained campaigning on this issue by me and others will mean that the plan will result in positive change for my Bradford South constituents.

Experience suggests that positive change for my constituents may well be wishful thinking. My constituents are suffering and take no solace whatever from the Government’s commitment to plan for a plan for reform.

The contract has been in place since 2006, and the Government has been undertaking a review of the process since 2011. After 12 years, it is still a work in progress.

An abridged version of a speech delivered by Judith Cummins, MP for Bradford South, during the debate on Reforms to NHS Dentistry.