Harrogate and Knaresborough Conservative MP Andrew Jones today urged the Prime Minister to tackle the “immediate strain” facing local people trying to access NHS dentists.
Concerns about a shortage of NHS dentists in Harrogate were heightened last week when Chatsworth House Dental Clinic, on King’s Road, said it will stop treating NHS patients at the end of the year.
Speaking at Prime Minister’s Questions today, Mr Jones said he and fellow North Yorkshire MPs met with the local integrated care board last week to discuss ways of improving dentistry provision. He added:
“But when surgeries suddenly close to NHS patients without notice as one in Harrogate did very recently, an immediate strain is put on local provision.
“Will the Prime Minister look at what can be done in these circumstances to ensure that no one is left without access to an NHS dentist?”
Mr Sunak pledged to “look into this issue” and said Mr Jones would be “reassured” to know the government was investing £3 billion a year into dentistry. He added there were no geographical restrictions on which dentists people could attend.
‘Sitting on the sidelines’
Tom Gordon with Daisy Cooper, the Liberal Democrats’ health spokesperson.
The man who hopes to succeed Mr Jones as Harrogate and Knaresborough MP at the next election accused his rival of “sitting on the sidelines” over dentistry.
Tom Gordon, the Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate, said he was “pleased that after 13 years Andrew Jones has finally bowed to pressure and asked a question in Parliament about the dentist crisis affecting local residents”, adding:
“In the last six months, the Lib Dems have been increasing the pressure on him to do this. We have set up a dentists survey, arranged a meeting with the Lib Dem shadow health minister and made sure that questions were asked in Parliament about this issue.
“We’ve heard awful stories about how local people have been putting up with pain as they can’t afford to see a dentist. It shouldn’t have required a concerted campaign to make our MP act.”
“We’re determined to keep on fighting for the cash that will re-establish NHS dentistry in our area. We hope Andrew Jones will join us in this fight rather than sitting on the sidelines as he has done over this and many other issues for the last 13 years.”
Following his meeting with Humber and North Yorkshire Integrated Care Board last week, Mr Jones said:
“Dental services have been recovering but there is much more progress to be made.
“It is important that action is taken swiftly to expand the NHS dental provision in our area.”
Read more:
- Station Gateway: Andrew Jones calls for funding to be switched to ‘other projects’
- Local politicians raise concern over lack of Harrogate and Knaresborough NHS dentistry
- Harrogate NHS dentist to move to ‘membership only’ patient scheme
‘Shocking’ lack of NHS dentists in Harrogate and Knaresborough raised in Parliament
A Liberal Democrat MP has raised concerns in Parliament about the “shocking” lack of NHS dentists in Harrogate and Knaresborough.
Daisy Cooper, MP for St Albans and the party’s health spokesperson, was taking part in a House of Commons debate yesterday on expanding the NHS workforce when she raised concerns about dentistry.
She said only half of children in North Yorkshire managed to see an NHS dentist last year, adding:
“In Harrogate if you are lucky enough to find an NHS dentist taking on any new patients you face a two-and-a-half year wait to see them. This is a shocking state of affairs.”
Ms Cooper called on a minister to visit the area to speak to patients and dentists to see the situation for themselves.
The issue has long been a cause for concern in Harrogate and Knaresborough. A Stray Ferret investigation carried out in March 2021 found that just two NHS dentists in the Harrogate district were accepting new patients – one in Knaresborough with a waiting time of two-and-a-half years, and one in Boroughbridge with a waiting time of three years.
Two years later, the NHS website currently lists just two practices in the district as accepting new patients, but only those under the age of 17 – one in Ripon and one in Boroughbridge. None are listed for Harrogate.
Tom Gordon, spokesperson and parliamentary candidate for the Liberal Democrats in Harrogate and Knaresborough, said:
“Patients in Harrogate and Knaresborough are facing an access crisis. Only yesterday I spoke with a family who moved to the area more than 18 months ago, they have been unable to find an NHS dentist and are now paying for private care. This is all too common; families are faced with a bill for private treatment or unacceptable waits to be seen by an NHS dentist.
“As a former health services researcher, I know how important it is that we get to grips with the dental crisis, and the impact that poor dental outcomes have on wider health & well-being.
“I am grateful to the Liberal Democrat MP Daisy Copper for raising this in Parliament and putting more pressure on ministers to act to fix this access crisis.”
The Conservative MP for Harrogate and Knaresborough, Andrew Jones, was approached for comment by the Stray Ferret, but no response has yet been received.
Read more:
- Lack of NHS dentists ‘severely affecting’ North Yorkshire residents’ health
- Watchdog report: Just one NHS dentist per 10,000 people in Harrogate district
- Harrogate district patients feeling ‘catastrophic impact’ of dental crisis
- Investigation: ‘Shocking’ waits for NHS dentists in Harrogate district
‘Radical reform’ needed for North Yorkshire NHS dentists, says councillor
A senior councillor has called for radical reform of NHS dentistry in North Yorkshire amid concern over access to appointments.
Cllr Andrew Lee, chair of North Yorkshire County Council’s health scrutiny panel, has written to the government’s health and social committee with evidence over “extremely problematic” access to dentists.
The Stray Ferret has highlighted long waiting lists for NHS dentistry in the Harrogate district in recent years.
Cllr Lee has written to Steve Brine MP, chair of the national health committee, who has called for evidence to support a public inquiry into the matter.
Cllr Lee said:
“For some years, the issues with being able to access an NHS dentist has been a high priority on the agenda for the scrutiny of health committee.
“Feedback consistently indicates it being extremely problematic to find, access and retain an NHS dentist.”
The move comes as North Yorkshire’s health scrutiny committee heard of inequalities in accessing dentists across the county.
For example, in North Yorkshire, Scarborough residents have a greater challenge in accessing dentistry than those in Harrogate, due, in part, to the difference in demographics.
Read more:
- Investigation: ‘Shocking’ waits for NHS dentists in Harrogate district
- Access to NHS dentists in North Yorkshire has ‘got worse’, says MP
However, a review of NHS dentistry published in August 2021 found that there was just one NHS dentist practice per 10,000 people in the Harrogate district.
Cllr Lee added:
Change of ownership at Harrogate dental practice“Radical reform is absolutely needed. The solution lies in the management of dental services. Recruitment and retention remain difficult, and dentists themselves are frustrated with the service they can provide.
“The problem does not lie with recruiting dentists, the problem lies with a broken and dysfunctional dental contract with severe underfunding. Dentists themselves cannot rectify this and it is creating by default a two-tier system whereby those that can afford to go private do so and others struggle to access any kind of care.”
South Park Dental Practice in Harrogate has been taken over by the Leeds-based Perfect Smile Clinic, with owner Dr Sanjay Gautam joining the staff.
The practice on South Park Road was owned by Dr Ian Auckland who has worked as a dentist in Harrogate since 1986. He will now reduce his hours with Dr Gautam taking on his patients.
Patients registered with Dr Kit Barnfather will continue to see him and these changes will not affect them.
Dr Gautam was brought up in Yorkshire and studied dentistry at King’s College London, qualifying in 1993.
Perfect Smile Clinic also has dentist practices in York, Leeds and Horsforth.
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Dr Gautam wrote a message for patients on the website for the Harrogate practice.
“I am sure that there will be a few changes along the way, but most of all I want to reassure you that you will continue to receive the high-quality treatment, that you have come to expect from our practice.”
Dentists have been allowed to remain open during the current lockdown, with social distancing in place.
Less than a half of Yorkshire dental practices re-open todayLess than a half of dentist practices in the region will open today despite the lifting of restrictions- many only providing a skeleton service.
However the British Dental Association (BDA) have conducted a poll which reported that only 42% of Yorkshire’s dentists will re-open.
Amongst those opening is Swan Dental Practice in Harrogate, their principal dentist Richard Bannister said:
“We won’t be running a full service straight away as we will only have one surgery open at a time. We will be focusing on the people who have had problems in the last three months, but right now we will be unable to do big procedures such as root canals as anything that uses aerosol sprays has been severely limited under the guidelines.”
Further data from the BDA has said that 54% of practices in Yorkshire don’t have the necessary PPE to resume face-to-face care. At the Swan Dental Practise, Mr Bannister said:
“We were very slow in receiving guidance from the government about PPE, but we have adequate supply for now unless the guidance changes. It has been challenging for us as there have been increases in the price of equipments, masks for example have gone up approximately 500% in price”.
Dental practices in the district have opened today, with a limited capacity for appointments.
Read more:
- Debenhams have announced their Harrogate store will re-open on the 15th June.
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The BDA Chair Mick Armstrong warned:
“Those expecting dentistry to magically return on Monday will find only a skeleton service. Practices reopening across Yorkshire and the Humber now face fewer patients and higher costs and will struggle to meet demand. Dentists returning to work still lack the support offered to our neighbours on the high street, and even clarity on key worker status when it comes to childcare. Ministers must change tack if dentistry is going to survive the new normal.”
Harrogate dentists prioritise emergency patients
Dentists in Harrogate have been hit hard by lockdown restrictions and some fear that social distancing measures at surgeries will be place for a long time to come.
Dr Tim Doswell, who is a dentist at the Raglan Suite in Harrogate, said dentistry will not be able to “go back to normal” and that surgeries will have to prioritise emergency procedures.
He said non-essential areas, such as cosmetics, will have to be seen as less important and appointments may remain limited for some time to come.
Meanwhile, patient appointments may have to be spaced out which means some dentists will be forced to remain open longer in order to see them.
Dr Doswell said the industry will have to adjust to life after the coronavirus pandemic.
“The problem with dentistry there is a lot of aerosol-generating procedures and it has been shown that this can stay in the environment in the surgery for up to three hours, so this then puts the next patient at risk,” he said.
“So in the new world when we do go back to work it’s going to be very different until we get a vaccine.
“Appointments will have to be spaced out which is going to limit availability, so non-essential dentistry is going to be very limited for a long time as dentists will have to prioritise emergencies.”
At the moment, dentists can only see patients for emergency appointments.
This includes life threatening infections, trauma caused by accidents, severe pain that cannot be controlled by pain killers or a fractured tooth which has exposed the nerve.
Other patients are triaged over the phone and offered advice or prescribed medicine, such as pain killers or antibiotics.
Anne Benson, who works as a carer for St Margaret’s, told the Stray Ferret that she would not have been able to get back to work without the swift work of her dentist:
“The day after the lockdown came into place I started to have really bad toothache. After a few courses of antibiotics prescribed by my dentist did not seem to be doing the trick he booked me in for another appointment. He carried out an x ray and then drained the abscess. He was in full PPE along with his assistant the whole time, it was absolutely brilliant. If I didn’t get the care from my dentist then I would not be able to do my job looking after vulnerable people.”
Dentists and technicians from the Raglan Suite Dentistry Laboratory in Ripon have developed a protective visor from 3D printers normally used for dental work.
So far they have provided almost 2,500 visors free of charge to local care homes, hospitals and other key workers that need them.
Steven Campbell, Dental Technician at the Raglan Suite and MD of Nexus Dental Laboratory, told The Stray Ferret:
“Dentistry is on pause, so we wanted to make use of our 3D printing machines that usually make night guards, liners and dentures. I was shocked at the lack of PPE available so we have managed to come up with the perfect design to create these essential visors. It is brilliant to be able to provide PPE equipment to our local area.”
The technicians have also been making 900 ear savers each day to make the visors more comfortable for people to wear for long periods of time.
There has been industry funding for the production of these and there is also a go fund me page where people are able to donate towards the making of them.
