Dental patients to benefit from 700,000 extra urgent appointments

• Government delivers on its manifesto commitment to roll out extra urgent appointments across the country  
• “Dental deserts” where patients struggle to get appointments targeted
• Plans mark first step towards rebuilding NHS dentistry – with government also set to deliver supervised toothbrushing to improve children’s oral health

Hundreds of thousands of people across England will soon be able to access urgent and emergency dental care as the government and NHS rolls out 700,000 extra urgent appointments, Health Minister Stephen Kinnock announced today (Friday 21 February). 

Delivering on the government’s manifesto pledge, NHS England has today written to integrated care boards (ICB) across the country, directing health chiefs in each region to stand up thousands of urgent appointments over the next year.  

Access to NHS dentistry is increasingly a lottery across the country. Statistics from the GP Patient Survey 2024 show that around 1 in 4 patients who tried to see an NHS dentist in the past two years were unable to do so.

This has led to desperate scenes across the country, such as at St Paul’s Dental Practice in Bristol, where hundreds of patients gathered outside in the hope of seeing an NHS dentist and police had to intervene to manage the queue when the practice re-opened in February 2024.

Previous interventions have failed to address the crisis in NHS dentistry. For example, the new patient premium – introduced as part of the dental recovery plan published in 2024 – revealed to have cost £88 million but with no impact for patients.

Data published last week showed the number of new patients accessing NHS dentists has actually fallen by 3% since the scheme was introduced.

This government has confirmed it will be scrapping the new patient premium, and today sees it already begin the work of rolling out new appointments across the country.

As part of the government’s manifesto commitment, the extra appointments will be available from April and have been targeted at dental deserts – areas where patients particularly struggle to access NHS dentists. This includes parts of the East of England, such as Norfolk and Waveney, where there are just 31 NHS dentists respectively for every 100,000 people – way below the national average.

The announcement marks the start of the government and NHS delivering on the manifesto pledge to provide 700,000 extra urgent and emergency dental appointments to address the crisis in NHS dentistry. 

Stephen Kinnock, Minister of State for Care said  

“We promised we would end the misery faced by hundreds of thousands of people unable to get urgent dental care. Today we’re starting to deliver on that commitment.  

“NHS dentistry has been left broken after years of neglect , with patients left in pain without appointments, or queueing around the block just to be seen.

“Through our Plan for Change, this government will rebuild dentistry – focusing on prevention, retention of NHS dentists and reforming the NHS contract to make NHS work more appealing to dentists and increase capacity for more patients. This will take time, but today marks an important step towards getting NHS dentistry back on its feet.” 

Each ICB has a target of urgent appointments to roll out, based on estimated local levels of unmet need for urgent NHS care. Levels of unmet need are calculated by measures including looking at how many people tried and failed to get an NHS dentist appointment. 

These extra appointments will be for patients who are likely to be in pain – including those suffering from infections or needing urgent repairs to a bridge – and require urgent treatment. NHS commissioners will be working fast to secure these extra appointments this year, with appointments to start coming online from April. Patients will be able to access these appointments by contacting their usual dental practice or calling NHS 111 if they don’t have a regular dentist or need help out-of-hours.

The plans are the first step towards securing more urgent care for patients over the longer term and will allow for more a more fundamental reform of urgent dental care provision. 

Jason Wong, Chief Dental Officer for England said

“Dentists are working hard to help as many patients as possible but too many people experience difficulties in accessing NHS dental services.

“It is vital that we do more to improve access – we are working with local systems to prioritise this, which includes providing 700,000 additional urgent dental appointments to help make it quicker and easier for those most in need to be seen and treated on the NHS and we are incentivising dentists to work in underserved areas so that all areas of the country can receive the care they need.”

After inheriting an NHS dental sector in crisis, the government is acting now to make it fit for the future, following years of neglect and unsuccessful interventions.  

A recent report by the National Audit Office found that access to NHS dentistry remains below pre-pandemic levels, with the previous administration’s dental recovery plan not on course to deliver its target of 1.5 million extra treatments by the end of 2024/25. 

Children’s oral health is also in crisis, with tooth decay being the number one reason that children aged 5-9 years old are admitted to hospital. More than a fifth of five-year-old school children have signs of dental decay, according to data published by OHID last week.

The data also showed stark regional inequalities in terms of good oral health – with areas of high deprivation having rates of tooth decay more than double that of wealthier areas. For example, almost 1 in 3 children (32.2%) living in Merseyside showed signs of decay, compared to just 13.6% of kids in Gloucestershire.

To tackle this, the government will introduce a new supervised tooth-brushing scheme for 3-to-5-year-olds – which is aimed at providing advice and tooth brushing guidance in the school setting to children living in the most deprived areas in England, as well as providing toothbrushes and toothpaste.  

The government is also recruiting new dentists to areas that need them most and will reform the dental contract, with a shift to focusing on prevention and the retention of NHS dentists. This includes the golden hello bonus incentive payment of £20,000, which is being offered per dentist for up to 240 dentists who agree to work in areas of the country that have traditionally been hard to recruit to.   Until July, none of the 240 roles had been filled, but the government has since delivered 68 posts, with more to come.

Jacob Lant, Chief Executive of National Voices, said

“NHS dentistry has been left in a sorry state, with far too many people experiencing pain and discomfort because they can’t access basic care.

“These extra urgent appointments will be welcome and are a helpful first step, but fixing the nation’s oral health crisis will require a sustained effort.

“We now need local NHS leaders to work creatively to ensure available capacity is targeting those most in need, whether treating an infected tooth or ensuring cancer and transplant patients get the dental check-ups they need before starting treatment.”

NOTES TO EDITORS  

Urgent care appointments to be delivered by individual ICBs