NHS dentistry – confusion over rights
New Healthwatch England data highlights people’s confusion about their right to register with an NHS dentist with over two-thirds, 68%, of respondents mistakenly believe they have the right to register with an NHS dentist as they do with an NHS GP.
We hear from a lot of people about NHS dentistry concerns and confusion over being asked to pay – we highlighted this in our report in July this year – What we’re hearing about dentistry – July 2024 – Healthwatch Surrey. In this report, we recognised that although nationally there have been a number of short-term interventions aimed at increasing NHS capacity and we are aware that NHS leaders are working locally to increase NHS dental capacity where possible, the key themes we are hearing about from Surrey residents, have remained largely unchanged:
- Information about dentists accepting NHS patients is not up to date
- Confusion around treatment covered by the NHS and charges for NHS dental care
- Financial barriers to receiving dental care.
We continue to work with NHS Surrey Heartlands to help highlight some of these issues and continue to raise awareness of these issues.
We encourage Surrey residents to continue to contact us to share their experiences so we can continue to raise these issues – we also share themes we hear with Healthwatch England. In addition, we have information on the signposting page of our website – Dentistry – NHS – Healthwatch Surrey and, people can also contact our Helpdesk if they need further information.
Read the full Healthwatch England findings on their website: Public’s confusion over ‘right’ to register with an NHS dentist.