According to an industry watchdog, patients in West Yorkshire are using emergency clinics because they cannot access NHS dental treatment. Healthwatch has said that the NHS has a ‘poor understanding of what patients want’ and NHS England is currently reviewing the urgent dental care service to try and improve access to immediate treatment.
Research carried out by Healthwatch suggests that a high percentage of dental patients in West Yorkshire do not have access to an NHS dentist – 60% of the 250 people asked agreed with this, saying that they were not registered with an NHS dentist. The watchdog also found that more younger people and people from South Asian Communities used the treatment more than other groups within the community.
It was commented by Healthwatch that ‘people use this service because they can’t find a local NHS dentist. NHS England have not spent time properly understanding why people use unplanned dental clinics and what patients want.’ Additionally, they added that the services on offer were not meeting the needs of patients in West Yorkshire.
Alison Knowles, Locality Director of NHS England for Yorkshire and the Humber, said that accessing treatment was obviously important and added that NHS England had funded treatment for 10,000 extra patients in the area and the body is now ‘reviewing the urgent dental care service with the specific aim of further increasing the funding that’s targeted at routine access to dental care.’