A health watchdog says despite 'years of shouting' there is very little sign access to NHS dentists is improving in Rutland. 

The boss of Rutland Healthwatch Dr Janet Underwood told a Rutland County Council scrutiny meeting on Thursday (October 17) that dentistry access was 'far and away better' before the pandemic and that it has deteriorated since then. 

She said Oadby and Blaby were the areas with the best access in the health board area, with Melton and Rutland having the worst access. 

She said: "These are figures we have been shouting about, complaining about and asking about for years and they still seem to be getting worse." 

When asked if she thought there were signs of improvement, she responded 'not a lot'. 

At a recent meeting of the county's health and wellbeing board she had raised her concern that a long-awaited oral health needs assessment for the county was still in draft form and had not been published. 

Her colleague Tracey Allen-Jones said the Healthwatch organisation, which is independent, had been told by people they were having to consider going without essentials to pay for private treatment or taking on debt. Some children in the county have also never seen a dentist. 

She said 59 per cent of those who took part in a recent survey could not access NHS dentistry in the county. 

She said a recovery plan for the county had not had any public input and they also had concerns about a new shift in focus in local health to spending money on prevention services. 

She said: "On the point of storing up problems for the future, oral ill health has been linked to heart disease and diabetes. We also know dental check-ups are one way of spotting the early signs of oral cancers, so can we expect more ill health and cancers in the future because things went unnoticed when Rutland people had poor access over a long period?" 



Rutland as a county is well below the national average for denistry access. (Photo: Unsplash by Lute)

Sarah Prema, chief strategy officer from Leicester, Leicestershire and Ruland Integrated Care Board (LLRICB), which has responsibility for commissioning dentistry, said the issue in Rutland had been worsened by the pandemic, compounded by an Oakham dental practice handing back their contract. She also said there were issues with the national contract that needed to be resolved. 

Currently just under 20 per cent of Rutland adults have an NHS dentist, lower than the national average of a quarter.  

Meanwhile, 38 per cent of children have an NHS dentist in Rutland, compared to the national average of 41 per cent. 

To try and tackle the issue the ICB has commissioned another 10,000 units of dentistry access (UDAs), which they think will cover 3,200 treatments and enable more people to access NHS funded treatment. The ICB is in the process of finding a provider to deliver the units and Sarah said the health board is 'quietly confident' that will happen. 

Rutland's dentists will also see the rate of payment increased from £23 per UDa delivered to £28. 

Debra Mitchell, chief operating officer from the ICB, said the problem of how to get private contractors to do NHS work was 'really tricky'. She said that while Rutland was below where it should be for access, the ICB only received enough funding to provide half of the people in the Leicestershire and Rutland area with NHS access. 

Scrutiny committee member, Cllr Lucy Stephenson (Con) said that while recognising the county had special characteristics and was sparsely populated in rural areas: "We have a right to have decent teeth from cradle to grave just as much as an urban area." 

The committee questioned whether the county could have access to a mobile dentistry van to visit schools and care homes and Debra Mitchell said the area had not been selected by the region for the access, but they would try again. 

The committee, which is chaired by Cllr Ramsay Ross (Lab) said it noted that the ICB had taken steps to improve things, but it could have no certainty things would improve because of issues outside its control, such as the number of available dentists and willingness to work the NHS contracts.  

He said 'government must address as a matter of urgency the number of dentists operating in the NHS' and to seek a lasting settlement with the national dental council for a new contract. 

It also recommended the council leader writes to the health secretary about the issue.