Following on from previous summaries about what we’re hearing about NHS dentistry, we have looked at what we’ve heard from June 2023 – May 2024.
Access to NHS dental care continues to be one of the main issues that Healthwatch England hear about; communities across England have made it clear that NHS dentistry is not affordable and accessible. Healthwatch England are calling for long-term fundamental reforms to NHS Dentistry.
Nationally, there have been a number of short-term interventions aimed at increasing NHS capacity. We have also heard from NHS leaders working locally to increase NHS dental capacity where possible, particularly in areas that are particularly affected.
However, 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.
| What we're hearing about dentistry - July 2024 (pdf) | Download File (pdf 130.58 KB) |
| What we're hearing about dentistry - July 2024 (word) | Download File (vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document 793.64 KB) |
