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News Article
‘Ham-fisted’ IT rollout ‘threatens service disruption’
Mark Hughes posted a news article in News
NHS England is being warned that the planned rollout of a new “portal” for all NHS primary dental work could lead to widespread disruption. The NHS Dental Services Portal is proposed as a new digital system for managing all NHS dental contract administration, including how dental activity is recorded, validated and paid. It is being rolled out to modernise an old, fragmented process, with the aim of improving efficiency, transparency, and consistency. In an open letter sent to NHS Business Services Authority and NHSE, and shared with HSJ, the Dental Software Suppliers Association raised concerns about the speed of implementation being imposed. Read full article (paywalled). Source: Health Service Journal, 22 June 2026 -
News Article
Vulnerable children denied surgery as cancer patients prioritised
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Cancer waiting time pressures have led an acute trust to withdraw an offer to treat children with complex needs in its theatres. Oxford University Hospitals Foundation Trust is struggling with the target – which requires 75% of cancer patients to be treated within 62 days of referral. Its performance averaged 65% during the third quarter of 2025-26, placing it 91st out of 118 acute providers. The acute trust has previously allowed dental services provider Oxford Health FT to use theatres at its Horton General Hospitals to treat paediatric patients whose procedure required a general anaesthetic. This access has now been stood down until at least October 2026. OHFT said the suspension would “significantly impact our waiting lists”. As of April, 145 children were waiting for extraction at the Horton. Of those, 49 were already waiting over 18 weeks, and the longest wait was already five months. Children on the Horton list cannot safely receive care in a standard dental practice due to complex needs – such as learning disabilities, neurodiversity, behavioural issues, medical conditions and phobias – and need to be treated under general anaesthetic. Oxford Health told HSJ it is “using its adult theatre lists for children where appropriate” to mitigate the impact of the suspension on children’s waits. This list contains adults with special needs who also cannot be treated in a standard setting, who also face long waits for treatment. Most community dental services, which deliver care to vulnerable patients, are not part of an acute trust. Providers are therefore reliant on arrangements with acute providers to access theatres for general anaesthetic sessions. British Dental Association chair Eddie Crouch told HSJ: “Many dentists doing these extractions are fighting a losing battle for priority. Year-long waiting lists have too often been the norm for vulnerable young patients, many struggling to eat, to sleep, and to learn. We shouldn’t be forced to play a zero-sum game for theatre space.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 5 June 2026 -
News ArticleAuthorities in Australia have issued a warning to patients of a retired dentist, urging them to test themselves for bloodborne viruses due to "poor infection control practices" at the clinic. Thousands of patients at Dr William Tam's clinic in Strathfield, western Sydney may have been exposed to hepatitis B, hepatitis C and HIV, the New South Wales state health ministry said in a statement on Wednesday. The Ministry urged patients to see a doctor and test for such viruses, thought it noted that the "risk is low". Tam is now retired and de-registered as a dentist, the statement said. "The poor infection control practices at Dr Tam's practice means all former patients may be at low risk of a blood borne virus infection, which can have serious and long-lasting health impacts," Dr Leena Gupta, the public health clinical director of the Sydney Local Health District, said in the ministry statement. "People with HIV, hepatitis B, or hepatitis C may not have any symptoms for decades, so it is important that people at risk of these infections are tested, so that they can access treatment as appropriate." Gupta said they believed Tam had seen thousands of patients in the last 25 years, but there were no records that could be used to contact them. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 13 May 2026
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News Article
Almost a third of people in England use private dentists amid NHS dental crisis
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Almost a third of people in England now use private dentistry, with a sharp rise in the number of poorer households forced to pay for fillings and extractions. The scarcity of NHS care means the proportion of people turning to private dental services jumped from 22% in 2023 to 32% late last year, the health service’s patient watchdog found. The reliance on paid-for treatment is so significant that dental care is becoming a costly “one tier” – private-only – service for more and more people, Healthwatch England is warning. It is concerned that the percentage of people who describe themselves as struggling financially that have used private dentistry has almost doubled in recent years from 14% to 27%. “Our findings are a warning that for some people there’s only one-tier dental care – private,” said Rebecca Curtayne, Healthwatch England’s acting head of policy, public affairs and research. “It’s the most vulnerable people in our society who bear the brunt of the ongoing shortage of NHS dental appointments. “Too many people on low income are being forced into private care they struggle to afford, or are going without treatment altogether. The system is failing those who need it most.” The big shift to private dental care showed NHS dentistry “exists in name only for many people”, the Patients Association said. “This report is yet further damning evidence on the state of NHS dentistry and this double penalty for people on low incomes demonstrates a systemic failure with real human consequences,” said Rachel Power, the association’s chief executive. “This isn’t just about the cost of dentistry. The lack of affordable dental care harms physical health, leaves people in ongoing, sometimes agonising, pain, and can take a heavy toll on mental and emotional wellbeing.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 9 March 2026 -
News Article
Dentists return £900m for not seeing NHS patients
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Dentists in England are returning hundreds of millions of pounds a year to the government for unfulfilled NHS care, the BBC has learnt. Over the last two years, more than £900m has been handed back - £1 out of every £7 they have been paid - as dentists instead prioritise private work. The findings help explain why despite record sums being set aside for NHS dentistry, so many patients are struggling to get one - more than a fifth of people report not being able to access care when they need it. The government said improvements were being made this year and any money returned was reinvested into services. Nikita Jenkins, 27, from Cornwall, is one of millions of people who has struggled to access NHS dental care. She has not seen one for 14 years and has been forced to pay privately for her two young daughters to get treatment as she was told waiting lists locally were seven years long. "I tried every dentist in and around my area, but it was near impossible. "We were waiting and, in the end, I felt like we had no choice but to take the jump and pay to go private, to ensure that our children had the right health care." "Dentistry feels like a luxury, not a necessity, because it's just so inaccessible, which shouldn't be the case - especially for children," she told the BBC. Read full story Source: BBC News, 5 March 2026 -
News Article
Government ditches ‘700k appointments’ manifesto pledge
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
The government has admitted that a manifesto pledge was badly designed and is on course to be missed, a year after telling integrated care boards to deliver it. Labour’s 2024 manifesto said it “will tackle the immediate [dental] crisis with a rescue plan to provide 700,000 more urgent dental appointments”. A year ago, integrated care boards were told to commission their share of the “additional urgent appointments” to take place during 2025-26. But this week, NHS England wrote to ICBs saying: “The government has now confirmed that the 700,000 commitment will be broadened with immediate effect to all dental appointments measured through courses of treatment.” Several sector sources confirmed to HSJ that the original target was effectively being scrapped. Speaking at a conference last week, the former NHSE chief dental officer Sara Hurley said: “It’s lovely that [the government] are going to be able to fiddle with, sorry, amend the definition to what the new appointment offering is.” There has been widespread outcry in recent years because in many areas it is extremely difficult to get NHS dental appointments. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 2 March 2026 -
News Article
Botched 'Turkey teeth' op victim warns of dangers
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
A woman who needs reconstructive surgery after dental work in Turkey failed says she is being kept going by a need to warn others of the dangers. Leanne Abeyance, 41, from Telford - who underwent a so-called "Turkey teeth" operation - was left unable to breathe through her nose, which then collapsed days before she underwent an implant removal operation. She remains in constant pain, which she controls with sleeping tablets and morphine every day, and feels too self-conscious to go outside. "It doesn't get any easier, but I'm glad that it's touched so many people," Abeyance said. "I just want to chop my head off and start again." She had started using a prosthetic nose but had to stop after suffering an allergic reaction. In the week before the implant-removal operation at Guy's Hospital in London, she said her septum "came apart" and would not stop bleeding. "I got my mum round, I got everyone round. I actually said goodbye to my little girls, because I thought I was going to die, I thought I was going to get sepsis and die," Abeyance said. The failed dental work has also led her to develop auto-immune conditions that are causing damage to her face and have made it painful to eat. Advice from the NHS for people who are considering going abroad for dental work, external is that while it might be cheaper than the UK, the risks of the surgery need to be weighed against the savings. Patients should consult their NHS dentist first, it says, as standards vary in different countries. Read full story Source: BBC News, 21 January 2026 -
News Article
Dentists in England to be paid more for emergency NHS appointments
Patient_Safety_Learning posted a news article in News
Dentists in England will be paid more to ensure patients have easier access to emergency appointments under government plans, but experts have expressed doubt that it will improve care. The changes, which will be introduced from April next year, will include dentists being incentivised to provide emergency and complex treatments through the introduction of a standardised payment package, ministers said. Read full story Source: Guardian, 16 December 2025 -
News ArticlePeople needing emergency dental care in England are being denied help from the NHS despite guidance saying that it should be available, in some cases resorting to risky self-treatment such as pulling out their own teeth, the patient watchdog has found. Patients who experience a sudden dental crisis such as a broken tooth, abscess or severe tooth pain are meant to be able to get help from their dentist or by calling NHS 111. Read full story Source: Guardian, 15 December 2025
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Content Article
The nature of adverse events in dentistry (October 2024)
Patient-Safety-Learning posted an article in Dentist
Learning from clinical data on the subject of safety in dentistry is still in its early stages and current evidence does not provide epidemiological estimates on adverse events (AEs) associated with dental care. The aim of this dental practice study was to quantify and describe the nature and severity of harm experienced in association with dental care, and to assess for disparities in the prevalence of AEs. -
Content Article
Fatigue as a risk factor (13 December 2024)
Patient Safety Learning posted an article in Dentist
Fatigue has been explored by other healthcare professions for many years and is acknowledged as a potential risk factor for incidents of unintended harm as well as for the wellbeing of the healthcare team. As dentistry is a profession and service that has a central focus of patient safety, it could be perceived as irresponsible not to consider fatigue in risk strategies. -
Content ArticleThis report sets out information on the current delivery of NHS dentistry services and the development and progress of the plan for 2024-25. It looks at: access to NHS dentistry before the plan development of the 2024 dental recovery plan the government’s progress against the dental recovery plan’s objectives and plans for evaluation. It concludes that the dental recovery plan aspires to deliver more than an additional 1.5 million courses of treatment in 2024-25 but is not currently on course to do so. Even if these additional courses of treatment are delivered by the end of 2024-25, the plan would still mean that 2.6 million fewer courses of treatment would have been delivered than in 2018-19.
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Content ArticlePeople experiencing homelessness, looked after children and vulnerable migrants are among those groups being supported by initiatives to improve access to dental services for underserved communities in Yorkshire and Humber. Following publication of the paper “Inclusion Health: applying all our health”, which calls on health and care professionals to take action to reduce healthcare inequalities, local stakeholders identified a number of opportunities for targeted interventions to improve access, experience and outcomes for socially excluded and vulnerable groups known to have high dental needs in the area.
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Content ArticleThe impact of the pandemic on dental services was devastating. While the data is showing that the situation has improved since the first year of the pandemic, there is much more work to be done - particularly to improve the provision of care across England. The government has announced a plan to make dental services faster, simpler and fairer. It aims to improve dental services by making them: faster for patients through our new patient premium to support dentists to take on new patients and a new marketing campaign to help everyone who needs one to find a dentist simpler for patients and for dental staff by streamlining and tackling bureaucracy, with a wider set of workforce reforms to maximise the skills across the entire dental clinical team fairer, particularly for our rural and coastal communities, by introducing new dental vans to bring dental care to our most isolated communities, offering ‘golden hello’ incentives to encourage dentists into under-served areas and supporting those practices with the lowest rates of payment for their work The plan has 3 components. In 2024, we will significantly expand access so that everyone who needs to see a dentist will be able to. This will begin with measures to ensure those who have been unable to access care in the past 2 years will be able to do so - by offering a significant incentive to dentists to deliver this valuable NHS care. We are introducing mobile dental vans to take dentists and surgeries to isolated under-served communities. We will launch ‘Smile for Life’ - a major new focus on prevention and good oral health in young children, to be delivered via nurseries and other settings providing Start for Life services, and promoted by Family Hubs. We will also introduce dental outreach to primary schools in under-served areas, and take forward a consultation on expanding fluoridation of water to the north-east of England - a highly effective public health measure. We will ramp up the level of dental provision in the medium and longer term by supporting and developing the whole dental workforce, increasing workforce capacity as we have committed to do in the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan, reducing bureaucracy and setting the trajectory for longer-term reforms of the NHS dental contract.
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Content Article
Diagnostic safety: Royal College of Surgeons Edinburgh
Patient Safety Learning posted an article in Diagnosis
The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh launched a series of blogs in recognition of the World Patient Safety Day (WPSD) 2024 theme of "Improving Diagnosis for Patient Safety". RCSEd World Patient Safety Day 2024 A Novel Facial Cellulitis Pathway: Improving the Time to Surgery for Facial Necrotising Fasciitis Improving Diagnosis for Safety in Dentistry Using Audit to Improve Outcomes for Patients with Upper Tract Urothelial Cancer Diagnostic Safety in Surgery WHO World Patient Safety Day 2024: Improving Diagnosis for Patient Safety The Importance of Teamwork for Surgical Diagnostic Safety in Outpatients Challenges in the Diagnosis of Twin Silent Killers: Aortic Aneurysm and Acute Aortic Dissection Improving Diagnostic Safety in Orthopaedics NCEPOD: Prioritising Diagnostic Safety for Better Health Outcomes Protecting our Precious Gift of Life World Patient Safety Day 2024 — A View from the Bridge Can My Stool be Tested for Bowel Cancer? Virtual Diagnostics The Potential of AI to Help Reduce Diagnostic Errors Non-Technical Skills for Surgeons (NOTSS). Vignette 3 of 3. Leadership in Surgery: A Case Study Non-Technical Skills for Surgeons (NOTSS). Vignette 2 of 3. Team Communication: The Key to Clarity and Precisio Non-Technical Skills for Surgeons (NOTSS). Vignette 1 of 3. Situation Awareness: Staying Ahead of Potential Issues Enhancing Diagnostic Safety in Surgery Through Non-Technical Skills Diagnosing Acute Aortic Dissection – The Patient Perspective -
Content ArticlePrimary care – general practice, community pharmacy, optometry and dental services – delivers 90% of NHS interactions, face to face, by phone or online. The Primary care patient safety strategy describes the national and local commitments to improve patient safety in primary care, supporting all areas in this sector to fully implement the NHS Patient Safety Strategy. This strategy has three core areas of focus: Developing a supportive, learning environment and just culture in primary care, with sharing across the system so that the services can continually improve. Ensuring that the safety and wellbeing of patients and staff is central, and that our approach to managing safety is systematic and based on safety science and systems thinking. Involving patients in the identification and co-design of primary care patient safety ambitions, opportunities and improvements. This strategy seeks to continuously improve patient safety through existing processes and structures as much as possible, rather than adding work. The timeframes for the implementation of the local commitments are intentionally flexible to allow for the piloting of different approaches, and, while this strategy is for all areas of primary care, some improvements will be implemented first in general practice and the successes and learning then used in the rollout to community pharmacy, optometry and dental services. In summary: Safety culture: participate in the NHS staff survey. Safety systems: complete patient safety syllabus training. Insight: register for and use the new incident recording (LFPSE) and incident response (PSIRF) systems. Involvement: identify patient safety leads and lay patient safety partners. Improvement: review and test patient safety improvements in diagnosis, medication, referrals, optometry and dental services.
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News Article
Children waiting more than two years for tooth extractions
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Children needing a general anaesthetic for tooth extraction are waiting nearly three years in a hidden crisis that is not recorded on national waiting lists. A national report on hospital dentistry found there were more children on locally held waiting lists for assessment than on the nationally reported waiting list – 27,285 compared to 22,474. Some of the longest waits are thought to be in Kent and Medway, where 200 children are waiting for dental extractions – many of them with autism or learning disabilities. The longest wait is 143 weeks — about two years and nine months. The issue is going under the radar because there is a lack of a consistent dataset for community dental services, which are responsible for dentistry for children with special care needs, such as physical or learning disabilities. Children with additional needs often can’t have teeth extracted under a local anaesthetic and instead need to be admitted to a hospital with a paediatric intensive care unit where they can have a general anaesthetic. Being on a locally held waiting list – typically when a community dental service is not part of an acute trust – can mean commissioners are unaware of the scale of children waiting. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 6 May 2025 -
News ArticleAlmost three thousand children had tooth decay so severe they attended A&E last year, new data reveals. MPs have called for an end to the “national scandal” facing NHS dental care, as new figures reveal that in some areas of the country, A&E attendances for tooth decay have risen 40-fold since 2019. Figures obtained by the Liberal Democrat Party under the Freedom of Information Act reveal 2,800 children attended A&E due to tooth decay issues last year – up by a fifth since 2019 but slightly down on 2023. Overall, there were 16,100 A&E attendances over tooth decay in 2024, with areas such as Northwest Anglia NHS Trust seeing cases increase from just 6 in 2019 to 238. The figures come after a report this month from the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) said the national dental plan set out by the former government had “comprehensively failed”. The PAC’s report said the current national contract for dentists “remains unfit for purpose”, with current arrangements only sufficient for about half of England’s population to see an NHS dentist over two years. The Liberal Democrats’ health and social care spokesperson Helen Morgan said: "It is a national scandal that children are ending up in A&E in agony because they can’t get a dentist appointment. “Parents are being forced to watch their little ones cry through the night, all because the NHS dental system has been left to rot. We’re now seeing vast swathes of the country being turned into dental deserts, with no sign of things getting better. “This almost medieval situation of people pulling their own teeth out with pliers as they can’t get an appointment must end. That must start with a complete overhaul of the dental contract to boost the numbers of dentists and appointments and finally rid this country of dental deserts.” Read full story Source: The Independent, 14 April 2025
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News Article
ICB seeks first GP and dentist integration
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
An integrated care board in the East of England is working to integrate general practice and dental care records, and exploring shared sites for the two primary care services. Suffolk and North East Essex ICB is exploring how to “bring primary care services together”, according to recent board papers. Ed Garratt, its chief executive, said dental practices first began to collaborate through the ICB’s dental priority access and stabilisation scheme, which saw them offer 15,000 urgent appointments. “We’re now thinking about how to create networks of dental practices that could work together with our general practice networks,” he told HSJ. He added that the ICB was also pursuing integrating the summary care record – a patient record held by GPs – so it could be shared with dentists. Mr Garratt said having GPs and dentists working at the same hub sites was likely to be “the ultimate end stage” for this work. He said the moves were designed to improve communication and holistic care across dental and other health. “Often, dentists and GPs might share the same patient, but they would never communicate about that patient. So you can have more holistic care potentially if people were working closer together,” he said. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 10 April 2025 Further reading on the hub: The challenges of navigating the healthcare system -
News Article
Plan to increase access to NHS dentists in England ‘a complete failure’, MPs say
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
The official plan to increase access to NHS dental services in England has been a “complete failure”, and some of the government’s initiatives have worsened the crisis, a damning report warns. Millions of patients continue to be denied dental care, forcing them to pay for private treatment, build up mountains of credit card debt, or even worse perform dangerous DIY dentistry on their own teeth, the research by MPs found. Without immediate and significant changes to fix the “broken” system, there would be no future for population-wide access to NHS dentistry, the report by the public accounts committee (PAC) said. “This country is now years deep in an avalanche of harrowing stories of the impact of dentistry’s system failure,” said Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, the chair of the committee. “It is utterly disgraceful that, in the 21st century, some Britons have been forced to remove their own teeth.” He added: “Last year’s dental recovery plan was supposed to address these problems, something our report has found it has signally failed to do. Almost unbelievably, the government’s initiatives appear to have actually resulted in worsening the picture, with fewer new patients seen since the plan’s introduction.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 4 April 2025 -
News Article
Patient satisfaction with NHS has hit record low of 21%, survey finds
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Public satisfaction with the NHS is at a record low and dissatisfaction is at its highest, with the deepest discontent about A&E, GP and dental care. Just 21% of adults in Britain are satisfied with how the health service runs, down from 24% a year before, while 59% are dissatisfied, up from 52%, the latest annual survey of patients found. Satisfaction has fallen dramatically from the 70% recorded in 2010, the year the last Labour government left office, and the 60% found in 2019, the year before the Covid-19 pandemic. Mark Dayan, a policy analyst at the Nuffield Trust thinktank, which analysed the data alongside the King’s Fund, said the years since 2019 have seen “a startling collapse in NHS satisfaction. “It is by far the most dramatic loss of confidence in how the NHS runs that we have seen in 40 years of this survey.” A&E is the NHS service the public is least happy about. Satisfaction fell from 31% in 2023 to just 19% last year – the lowest proportion in the 41 years the British Social Attitudes (BSA) survey of the views of patients in England, Scotland and Wales has been carried out. Satisfaction with NHS dentistry has collapsed, too, from 60% as recently as 2019 to just 20% last year. More people (55%) are dissatisfied with dental care than with any other service. Similarly, fewer than a third (31%) of adults are satisfied with GP services. “The latest results lay bare the extent of the problems faced by the NHS and the size of the challenge for the government”, said Dan Wellings, a senior fellow at the King’s Fund. “For too many people, the NHS has become too difficult to access. How can you be satisfied with a service you can’t get into?” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 2 April 2025 -
News Article
People ‘reaching for pliers’ amid dental appointment difficulties
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
More than a quarter of Britons unable to secure NHS dental appointments in the past two years have resorted to self-treatment, a new poll reveals, highlighting a deepening crisis in NHS dentistry. Almost one in five sought treatment abroad, underscoring the lengths people are going to for dental care. Experts have urged the Government to “pick up pace and keep its promises” on dentistry, to avoid patients “reaching for pliers or cheap flights”. The poll, conducted by Ipsos for the PA news agency, surveyed 1,091 British adults. It found that fewer than half (48%) had successfully booked an NHS dental appointment within the last two years. While over a third (36%) hadn't attempted to make an appointment, a significant 18 per cent reported being unable to secure one, painting a stark picture of access challenges. Among those who could not get an appointment, more than a quarter (26%) said they had treated themselves, while 19% said they went abroad for treatment. Eddie Crouch, chairman of the British Dental Association, said: “Desperate people are reaching for pliers or cheap flights because for many NHS dentistry has effectively ceased to exist. “This service can have a future, but only if government is willing to pick up pace and keep its promises.” Read full story Source: The Independent, 21 March 2025 -
News Article
'There could be no NHS dentists in two years'
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
A dentist says he feels "strangled" by NHS contracts and believes NHS dentists may not exist in two years' time. Dr Harj Singhrao, who has a practice in Newbridge, Caerphilly, said money was allocated on a "one size fits all basis" meaning in high need areas like his, he had to lose money in order to provide good care. It comes as the British Dental Association (BDA) Cymru published an open letter accusing the Welsh government of "peddling half- truths", adding more practices were looking to hand NHS contracts back. The Welsh government said: "We are working to ensure the NHS dental contract is fairer for patients and to the dental profession." Dentists who want to treat NHS patients sign a contract with the Welsh government, which then gives them money per patient under the condition of certain targets, such as seeing a certain number of new patients. If these targets are not met, dentists may have to pay some money back as a penalty. Dr Singhrao is the principal dentist at Newbridge Dental Care and had to pay £50,000 back to the Welsh government. He said this was because he took on too many new NHS patients, but had to close a position at his practice as a result. He said the formula of treating every patient across Wales equally "does not work". Read full story Source: BBC News, 17 February 2025 -
News Article
English dentists ‘walking away’ from NHS work as fees fail to cover costs
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
A growing “exodus” of dentists willing to provide care on the NHS threatens to exacerbate the crisis in patients’ access to treatment, the profession’s leaders have said. Dentists are increasingly stopping doing NHS-funded work because their fees for many procedures do not even cover the costs involved, according to the British Dental Association (BDA). The fact that NHS payments had not kept pace with rising costs was forcing dental surgeries in England to “operate like a charity” when carrying out work for the health service, it said. The situation was so serious that dentists were in effect subsiding the NHS care they provided from their private work to the tune of about £332m a year, according to BDA analysis. Dentists lost £42.60 every time they fitted dentures and £7.69 on each examination of a new patient’s dental health when the NHS was paying for the treatment, it said. The findings come weeks after Wes Streeting, the health secretary, warned MPs that “NHS dentistry is at death’s door” and promised to take steps to save it from extinction. The inability to get NHS dental care, and the consequent emergence of “DIY dentistry” and “dental deserts” across swaths of England, has become a key public and political concern in recent years. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 13 February 2025 -
News Article
The seven-year wait for a dentist: why Linda Colla pulled out her own teeth
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
In chronic pain, unable to find an NHS practice and priced out of private care, Colla – like millions of Britons – felt she had no choice but to take matters into her own hands. Linda Colla holds an imaginary tooth between her forefinger and thumb and pulls it. Then she adds some rotation. Extracting her own teeth required wiggling and twisting, she explains. “It took me a couple of weeks to get each one out, because they just loosened and loosened and loosened. I used a tissue to get a better grip.” She points to a front incisor. It was the first to come out. Then a canine and finally a big molar. “It sounds very dramatic, pulling them out. But actually they were already loose,” she says. There was some pain on extraction, but they had been causing her constant pain before that. “It was too painful to eat. They just had to come out.” In 2018, Colla moved to east Devon. She contacted various dental surgeries and was told either that they didn’t take NHS patients or that they didn’t have the capacity to take any more. She went on a waiting list. “I got an email once – or was it a text? – asking if I still wanted to be on the list. I said yes, but I haven’t heard anything since.” She presumes, seven years on, she is still on that list. To have a tooth removed privately costs at least £150. Colla couldn’t afford that. When her three remaining real teeth became too painful to live with, about three years ago, she felt she had no choice but to take matters into her own hands. Thirteen million people in England – 28% of the adult population – have an unmet need for dentistry, according to an analysis in July by the British Dental Association (BDA). The number of people on waiting lists for an NHS dentist is estimated to be about 780,000. When the BDA and the Daily Mirror called up 100 practices listed on nhs.uk as “accepting new patients when availability allows”, they found that 86 were not accepting new patients. Some practices reported a waiting list of up to 10 years. In March 2023, YouGov found that 10% of Britons had carried out their own dental work; 34% of those had pulled out – or tried to pull out – their teeth. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 12 February 2025
