A health and wellbeing board chairperson has warned the area 'may never get more dentists' amid a crisis in dental services.

Rutland is the worst in the region for access to NHS dental services, meaning residents are having to go without treatment or pay for private care.

The issue has been on the radar of Rutland Healthwatch for several years, with chairperson of the watchdog Dr Janet Underwood calling the situation 'heartbreaking' and saying delays to a long-awaited oral health needs plan were 'unforgiveable'. 

The council's scrutiny committee looked into the issue last month and learned that an incentive to attract more dentists with a 'golden hello' payment of £20,000 had not worked and that the county will not receive services from the region's mobile dentistry unit. It will however receive an additional 10,000 'units of dental activity', each of which is 15 minutes, to get more people treated.

But at a meeting of the Rutland County Council cabinet on Tuesday, Diane Ellison (Lib Dem – Oakham South), cabinet member for health and chairperson of the health and wellbeing board, said more dentists offering NHS services may never arrive.

She said: "We may never get more dentists in Rutland. It is worth trying, it is worth trying to get the mobile unit here, but we may have to rely on alternative ways of reducing dental problems."

Coun Ramsay Ross (Labour – Oakham North West) presented his committee's findings to the cabinet, along with a recommendation the council leader writes to the health secretary to point out the issue.

He said: "When the current contract was established in 2008 it was assumed 50 per cent of the population would receive dental treatment through the NHS. Rutland had the lowest rate across the Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland region at December 2022 at 18.5 percent. Elsewhere in Leicestershire figures were in the high 30s. So we are at least 12-13 per cent worse than the average in our area, or more than 30 per cent worse than the NHS target.

"The now-promised 10,000 units of dental activity in some six months' time equates to about 1.6 dentists over a year. The promise is a hope and assumes that a clinic in Rutland will come forward to offer those units. We have also lost out on access to the new mobile unit which will cover remote areas in Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire. The committee has requested that the [NHS] integrated care board reconsiders this decision."

Council eader Gale Waller (Lib Dem – Normanton) agreed to write to the secretary of state highlighting the lack of NHS dental capacity in rural areas and the impact it is having on the health of the population. She will also ask that he considers funding a second dental unit for the region and that it reaches an agreement with the British Dental Association to encourage more dentists to do NHS work.