March 17, 2023 9.00 am This story is over 24 months old

Lincolnshire dentist shortage leads to residents ‘pulling own teeth’

Survey showed 45% of Lincolnshire residents have no access to an NHS dentist

Alex Gray has pulled out six of his own teeth. | Screenshot: BBC Look North
By Local Democracy Reporter

Lincolnshire is in the midst of a dental crisis, as more residents who struggle to access the NHS are forced towards private care they can barely afford.

People unable to get help told how they have resorted to pulling their own teeth.

Healthwatch Lincolnshire conducted a survey to gain insight into NHS dental service accessibility in the county from March 2021 to March 2022.

The results were alarming, as 45% of respondents confirmed that they had no access to an NHS dentist in this time period, and 45% had also not had an NHS dental check-up in the past two years.

40% of people contacted an alternative NHS service when unable to see a dentist in Lincolnshire, but 28% ended up paying to see a private dentist instead.

It comes after the Association of Dental Groups reported last summer that Greater Lincolnshire possessed three of the top four spots for UK areas with the least access to NHS dentists.

As of May 2022, North Lincolnshire CCG has just 32 NHS dentists per 100,000 people, making it the worst in the country, while North East Lincolnshire has 37 and Lincolnshire has 38 per 100,000 people.

The practice says there is no risk to patients | Stock image

One case study within the Healthwatch Lincolnshire report spoke of taking matters into their own hands and performing their own dentistry, after getting fed up of waiting for an appointment.

They said: “I broke a tooth in February 2022 and contacted my dentist only to be told I had been taken off the books because I hadn’t been since December 2019. Obviously COVID and the fact I was shielding didn’t make a difference!

“Since then I have phoned around dental practices on and off throughout the past 7 months, but no joy. Two weeks ago I started getting pain and swelling…abscess?

“I went on the 111 website and was given two dentists to ring in Lincoln. One of which didn’t answer the phone at all, despite ringing three days running and the other one, having been held in a queue for 35 minutes asked me to leave an answer phone message, which I did.

“Nobody called me back. I have self-medicated and thankfully the pain and swelling has stopped.”

Multiple other people spoke to Healthwatch Lincolnshire to say they pulled their own problem teeth out due to not having access to an NHS dentist and being unable to afford private care.

Another worrying experience showed many NHS practices handing back their contracts and only offering private treatment, with patients given no warning of this.

One person within the report said: “We have been forced to pay money we can ill afford for necessary dental treatment at a private dental clinic. This has to be a one off for us as we simply cannot afford that sort of money for dental treatment.”

Healthwatch Lincolnshire is now calling for an improvement to NHS dental provision in Lincolnshire, pushing for more NHS dentists and practices to operate consistently throughout the county.

This has resulted in the launch of its An NHS dentist 4 all – Improving dental services across Lincolnshire campaign, which runs until March 31.

NHS England announced £50 million of additional funding for dentistry in January 2022, but Healthwatch Lincolnshire are calling for more to be done, calling it “a fraction of what is required.”

The BBC and the British Dental Association carried out extensive research into the shortage of NHS dentists last summer.

Of those that responded, none in East Yorkshire and Lincolnshire were accepting new adult NHS patients at the time, and only 6% of them were accepting children.

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