The man aiming to be Winchester’s next MP says an alarming number of people across the Winchester area need emergency dental treatment in hospital because of a lack of access to NHS dentists.
Many of these urgent admissions are a direct result of patients not having an NHS dentist who is normally able to treat them in an emergency.
New figures highlighted by Steve Brine, the Prospective Conservative MP for Winchester (pictured), show that across the country, more than 20,000 people had to be admitted to hospital for emergency dental treatment last year costing the NHS £13 million a year. In the Hampshire Primary Care Trust area 609 people received emergency dental treatment in hospitals, costing the local NHS an estimated £362,000. Most of this has to be borne by already over-stretched A&E departments.
The figures show that 58% of the population across Hampshire PCT has not been seen by an NHS dentist in the last two years.
Now Shadow Health Secretary Andrew Lansley has pledged a new Conservative government would restore access to an NHS dentist for the one million patients who have lost it under Labour’s failed bureaucratic system. He also outlined plans to ensure taxpayer-trained dentists work for the NHS for at least five years, create new incentives for dentists to spend more time on preventative dental care and reintroduce dental screening for children in schools.
Steve Brine said: “These figures underline once again the Government’s appalling failure on NHS dentistry, despite the pledges made time and again by Tony Blair when he was Prime Minister. Many people in this area have been in touch with me concerned about this and a residents’ survey I undertook recently backed up these figures almost exactly. I hope they will be re-assured by our plans if we win the next election.”
Local residents have given their support to proposals. Michele Hitchcock-Dutton of Kings Worthy said: “I am absolutely in agreement that tax-payer trained dentists should do at least five years for the NHS. You just can’t fail with that kind of system in place - there would be a constant turnover of dentists and no fear of them turning private straight away. I’ll never understand why they took the dental nurse away from schools, something I clearly remember when I was younger and we only benefitted from it.”