Council bosses have raised concerns that new dentists working for the NHS are not going to the areas that need them most.
The Local Government Association (LGA) has responded to new NHS dental statistics for England, which show that the number of annual NHS appointments remains below pre-pandemic levels.
Chairman of the LGA’s community wellbeing board, Cllr David Fothergill, said: ‘Councils are concerned that new NHS dentists are not going to the areas that need them the most, with many areas with the worst shortages seeing no changes or a fall in the number of practices offering NHS treatment in their communities over the last year.
‘During this present cost of living crisis, a lack of NHS dentists could risk people choosing to forgo routine dental treatments or even resort to DIY dentistry, risking more costly emergency dental treatments being needed further down the line.
‘The Government should reform the contract it has with dental surgeries as well as develop a workforce strategy to ensure we can have affordable dental treatments for communities across the country.’
The new data, published by NHS Digital, revealed that 18.1 million adults in England were seen by an NHS dentist in the 24 months leading up to June 2023, compared with 21.9 million in the equivalent period up to June 2019.
However, this year’s total does represent an increase on last June’s figures, when 16.4 million adults were reported to have visited an NHS dentist over the previous two years.
