Further cuts will kill off NHS dental services, chancellor told

Jeremy Hunt has been told that any cuts to the health budget will in effect “kill” dental services across the UK and deny millions of patients access to a dentist on the NHS.

The chancellor has told members of the cabinet that “everything is on the table” as he seeks to find tens of billions of pounds in savings after ditching the economic plan of Liz Truss, who said on Thursday she was standing down as prime minister. Health is one key area expected to be hit.

But in an email to Hunt seen by the Guardian, the head of the British Dental Association (BDA) said in plain terms that because NHS dentistry had already “faced cuts with no parallel anywhere in the health service” over the last decade, any further reduction in funding could trigger its collapse.

“In blunt terms, NHS dentistry is approaching the end of the road,” Martin Woodrow, the BDA chief executive, wrote in the memo. “There is simply no more fat to trim, short of denying access to an even greater proportion of the population.”

In the memo to Hunt, Woodrow wrote: “Recent NHS England board papers confirm officials are euphemistically ‘taking steps to maximise access from existing resources’. We know what that means. Yes, we recognise the unparalleled pressures on public spending. Equally, we cannot escape the hard fact that a service millions depend on materially lacks the resources to underpin any rebuild.

“You have also spoken of the need for all departments to seek ‘efficiency savings’. Since the financial crash, NHS dentistry has faced cuts with no parallel anywhere in the health service, going into the pandemic with lower government contributions – in cash terms – than it saw a decade ago.

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Source: The Guardian, 21 October 2022