A RETIRED York dentist and former British Dental Association president has warned that the NHS dentistry crisis will only worsen until the Government delivers much better NHS contracts.

Stuart Robson, who was a senior partner in a large NHS dental practice in Blossom Street, York, spoke out after The Press reported how patients had been left in a limbo by the growing problems - with holes in their teeth which they couldn't get filled and more serious problems such as monitoring for oral cancers via check-ups which were due but they couldn't obtain.

York Central MP Rachael Maskell raised the growing problems in the Commons, saying there was a 'mass exodus' of dentists from the NHS and suggesting one of the solutions for York might be the creation of a dental school at the Hull and York Medical School. 

Dr Robson said the MP's idea of a new dental faculty was explored with the university when the new medical faculty was being developed a number of years ago, and at that time funds did not allow it. 

He warned that to build a new facility, whilst desirable, would take probably 5/6 years and it would be at least 10 years before any benefits were apparent as a dental degree course was 5 years as an undergraduate. 

 "Trying to recruit from abroad is not very productive as other countries are short of dentists, UK is not perceived as attractive, whilst work visas and General Dental Council language test are very stringent,"he added.

Dr Robson said very few articles explained why or how the 'deplorable' situation had arisen, and said the reasons were 'many and varied but was largely due to the Government not implementing the independent Review Body’s recommendations on funding, and not expediting negotiations for a revised NHS contract for dental practitioners,' and he claimed Covid was being used as an excuse.

He said the Department of Health 'trotted out' a statistic that it had injected £50 million into the dental budget but, with a national dental budget in excess of £3 billion pounds nationally, this was 'relatively speaking a modest amount but made a nice media headline.'

He said: "Dental practitioners' NHS income has fallen by over 30 per cent in the last five years, out of which practice owners have to fund ever increasing practice expenses, such as equipment, materials, wages etc.

"Therefore NHS practices are simply not viable financially, especially the smaller practices which cannot benefit from economies of scale which can help the larger multiple practices.

"Dental Inflation’ is higher than the national figure of 9 per cent, as much of the hardware, drugs and materials have to come from abroad.

"The Department of Health has made no provision for this factor, merely awarding dental practitioners a 2 per cent increase in gross income."

He said North Yorkshire had seen the most significant number of NHS dental contract hand-backs within the Yorkshire & Humber NHS region, not only in York but practices in Scarborough, Whitby, Helmsley and Tadcaster.