NHS dentistry is at ‘death’s door’, Streeting tells MPs
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NHS dentistry is at “death’s door”, the Health Secretary has told MPs as he restated his commitment to rolling out an extra 700,000 urgent dental appointments. Wes Streeting said the dental appointments would be delivered “as fast as we can”, whilst also pledging to fix the “front door” to the NHS with additional funding for GP surgeries.
During health questions in the Commons, he said: “Today there are 1,399 fewer full-time equivalent GPs than in 2015, and NHS dentistry is at death’s door. “This Government will fix the front door to the NHS. We’ve announced an additional £889 million in funding for general practice in 2025-26, the biggest boost in years, and started hiring an extra 1,000 GPs to the front line already.
“And our 10-year health plan will shift the focus of healthcare out of hospital into the community.”. This came in response to Labour MP for Barking, Nesil Caliskan, who had asked what assessment his department had made of patient access to primary care services.
Later in the session on Tuesday, Liberal Democrat health spokeswoman Helen Morgan raised a petition by the British Dental Association which calls on the Government to save NHS dentistry. She said: “Dentistry is obviously a key part of primary care and yet an estimated five million people in England have been left without an NHS dentist, and that’s why today a petition is being handed in at Downing Street signed by more than a quarter of a million people.
