BRADFORD South MP Judith Cummins has called for urgent action from the Government to save NHS dentistry and improve access in Bradford. 

Speaking during a parliamentary debate she secured on access to NHS dentistry and oral health inequalities, Mrs Cummins said that “the crisis in access we were experiencing prior to March has been turbocharged”. 

She said: “Solving it now requires the Government to dramatically change its approach to oral health treatment and prevention.” 

During the debate, Mrs Cummins discussed the impact that the coronavirus pandemic has had on NHS dentistry.

The British Dental Association estimates that 19 million appointments were lost between March and October.

Practices have to have a period of ‘fallow’ time between patients for ventilation and cleaning purposes.

Mrs Cummins called on the Government to provide capital funding to dental practices, so they can install high-capacity ventilation equipment to increase the number of patients able to receive vital oral healthcare.

“This is a matter of public health and it is the responsibility of the Government to safeguard and protect that. To avoid that responsibility would be a matter of gross negligence on the part of this Government,” she said. 

The MP also highlighted the issues that people in the city are facing.

She said in the debate: “One local dentist in Bradford told me ‘our phones are ringing hot with new patients who have no dentist access, which has certainly been made worse by this year’s lockdown. On top of this we are facing significant staffing pressures, due to increased triage requirements and the need to thoroughly clean the practice between patients’.”

She added: “Just yesterday I was contacted by a constituent who’s been trying to get a dental appointment for five months and is living with gum disease and tooth ache. It is simply unacceptable.”

During the debate, Mrs Cummins also called for the Government to invest in preventive dentistry to end oral health inequalities. 

“In Bradford, 36 per cent of children have tooth decay, compared to just seven per cent of children in the best performing area of the country,” she said.

“With access to both primary and secondary care dentistry severely limited for the foreseeable future, emphasis on and investment in oral health prevention is needed more than ever.Government must now commit to investing in preventative schemes that are proven to work.

"This includes supervised tooth brushing for children, which the Government committed to consult on by the end of 2020.” 

Public health minister Jo Churchill said: “I am determined that we mitigate, as much as we can, against widening oral health inequalities during this difficult period because, as we’ve alluded to, we know we had a problem beforehand.

She added: “Without a doubt we know that oral health inequalities are likely to have increased over the period of the pandemic and NHSEI (NHS England and NHS Improvement) are working hard to make sure that caring for vulnerable communities is prioritised.”

The minister said the Government is “working as hard as we can” to meet consultation dates, including on rolling out a supervised tooth brushing scheme in more pre-school and primary settings.

She said she was keen to understand what further work could be done to solve the challenges in dentistry.