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Cate Baggett says something needs to be done to address the NHS dentist shortage
A woman who has had emergency dental surgery four times this year says she is struggling to find an NHS dentist.
Cate Baggett said she needs partial root canal surgery but cannot find a practice near her home in Chippenham, Wiltshire, to complete the work.
Ms Baggett said “nothing seems to be done” about “a massive shortage of NHS dentists” in the area.
A spokesperson from the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said the situation is being addressed through its 10-year health plan for England.
Ms Baggett said her surgery would cost £2,000 if she was treated by a private dentist, which she cannot afford, leading to her finding temporary solutions.
She said: “The filling put into my root canal keeps disintegrating and the only thing I can do is keep going back to the emergency dental hospital.”
Over in Calne, Jenn Epstein said she had made endless calls to find a dentist for her two daughters, aged three and five.
Jenn Epstein said she rang round local dentists but was told they weren’t accepting NHS patients
Ms Epstein said: “We moved to Wiltshire two-and-a-half years ago and I started to look for a dentist but none of them were taking NHS patients.
“I was told over and over to call back in a month. I even made a note in my phone so I’d remember.
“They are very young, you’d think kids of that age and getting their adult teeth would be able to get [an appointment] somewhere.”
Sarah Gibson says too many patients in Wiltshire are struggling to find dental care
Sarah Gibson, the Liberal Democrat MP for Chippenham, said too many patients in Wiltshire are forced to seek emergency care for dental problems which could have been resolved earlier if they were registered with an NHS dentist.
“It’s not a good system at the moment,” she said. “You can understand why dentists find it difficult to keep NHS patients without having private patients to subsidise this. Both the patients and the dentists are suffering.”
‘System being fixed’
The DHSC said the 10-year plan for the NHS in England – a document which delves into the wider issue of healthcare across the country – includes improvements on dentistry.
A spokesperson said: “This government inherited a broken NHS dental system, but we’re getting on with fixing it through our plan.”
Meanwhile a spokesperson from Bath and North East Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire Integrated Care Board said: “There are measures in place across the south west to increase dental access for patients.
“These include commissioning additional urgent dental care that can be accessed by calling NHS 111, providing additional children’s orthodontic capacity and promoting oral health improvement initiatives, such as the supervised toothbrushing programmes taking place in local schools.”
The ICB also says there is no geographical restriction on dental practices taking NHS patients, meaning people can look further out their towns or villages.