The Government has finally acknowledged the NHS dentistry crisis. Now it must take action.

 8th of August 2025

When I stood for election a little over a year ago, the one issue that came up time and time again was the near-complete collapse in access to NHS dental care locally. It was raised by parents who couldn’t get appointments for their children, and by people sometimes travelling hours just to be seen. I’ve even spoken to people in so much pain that they resorted to pulling out their teeth. This cannot be right.

I’ve long believed that dentistry is the forgotten sibling of the NHS. A vital service that has been chronically underfunded for decades.

From day one in Parliament, I made it a priority to press the Government on this issue. I’ve repeatedly raised it on the floor of the House, submitted questions, and met with the British Dental Association (BDA) and the campaign group Toothless in England multiple times to hear directly from those on the front lines. Their message has been consistent: the current system is broken.

Dentists are willing and able to help, but many are leaving NHS work because the contract model is unworkable, and the funding is not there. That is why I have sought to work with the BDA to secure a new workable contract - one that serves dentists, patients, and the NHS.

The Government’s response until now has been lacklustre to say the least. They have promised reforms that never materialised and continued to allocate funding that, infuriatingly, went unspent. In fact, despite the Government’s initial action and announcements and schemes that were supposed to fix things, the proportion of dentists working in the NHS in Norfolk and Waveney continues to drop.

I took the opportunity in Parliament last month to ask the Minister of State for Care whether the recently announced additional funding for the Department of Health and Social Care would lead to substantial investment in NHS dentistry. I asked a simple, direct question. Will the Government ensure that the extra funding that has been put into the Department is actually reflected in extra funding for NHS dentistry? 

This time, the Minister gave a clear and welcome commitment. He said, and I quote, “Every penny that is allocated to NHS dentistry must be spent on NHS dentistry.” He also acknowledged how outrageous it is that we have seen underspending in dentistry budgets at a time of rising demand. Crucially, he recognised that areas like East Anglia, which have been underserved for years, must be prioritised.

As someone who has worked consistently on this issue, both inside and outside Parliament, I am pleased that the Government is finally starting to recognise the scale of the problem. But let’s be clear. Words are not enough. Promises mean little unless they are followed by action. What we need is for this Government to live up to its commitment to spend every penny allocated to NHS dentistry, and to follow through as soon as possible with the contract reforms so we can stop – and then reverse – the exodus of dentists from the NHS.

For people in Waveney Valley and across East Anglia, this needs to result in more NHS dentists on the ground. It needs to mean appointments that are available when needed. Patients must not be forced into private treatment or left waiting for months or longer for basic care.

There is also a broader question here about how we view dentistry as part of our health system. For too long, dental care has been treated as a separate or second-tier service. That must change. Oral health is not an optional extra, it’s a vital part of our overall health. Until the Government sees this, we are going to get nowhere in improving our overall wellbeing.

Untreated dental problems can lead to severe pain, serious infections, and, in some cases, leave people unable to eat. Tooth decay is the number one reason for hospital admission for children – a total scandal. The idea that this essential part of healthcare is now out of reach for so many people is not just unfair. It is a public health failure.

The Government may have come to its senses on NHS dentistry, but this must now be a turning point, not just a passing gesture. In the months ahead, I will continue to work with the BDA and Toothless in England to push for tangible action, not just words.

No one should be in pain because they cannot afford to see a dentist. No child should be denied basic healthcare because of where they live. It’s time the Government made good on its promise and delivered NHS dentistry that works for the people who need it most.

I will not let this issue drop. I will continue to fight for a system that works, for patients, for dentists, and communities like ours.

Tackling dental deserts

A shocking story on the BBC News website this month revealed that a Norwich dental practice which has 200 spaces for new NHS patients received over 16,000 applications in just one day. 

I say it was shocking but, in truth, it was not surprising. East Anglia is an NHS dental desert, the worst dental desert in the country, where 99.7 percent of people are unable to find an NHS dentist. Official figures show that for new patients, NHS dentistry has effectively ceased to exist. 

Around one in five patients suffer in pain. There are even reports of people resorting to pulling out their own teeth because they cannot find an NHS dentist and cannot afford to pay for a private one. 

It sounds Dickensian. Yet we are living in the 21st century.  

I know from my parliamentary email inbox that this is a high priority for my constituents. So when I had the opportunity to question the Prime Minister directly about it, I asked him when the Government would start the critical negotiations to reform the dental contract, which is at the heart of the problem. Dentists are not being paid appropriately for the work they do, so too many of them are quitting the NHS and treating only private patients. 

I’m glad that Sir Keir Starmer acknowledged that we face a crisis and one the Government is determined to put right. I’m glad too that the Prime Minister said the Government would work on a cross-party basis to address the issue. But he wouldn’t commit to starting negotiations before the end of this year and patients are tired of waiting. 

The health minister is promising a rescue plan to restore NHS dentistry with 700,000 additional urgent appointments in areas of the country most in need “as soon as possible”. Those appointments can’t come soon enough. 

If access to NHS dentistry was the only problem facing health care, it would be bad enough. But it isn’t. There is a critical lack of hospital services in the constituency with some people living 20 miles or more from their nearest big hospital. There is also a lack of post-operative care following eye surgeries such as cataracts which is having an knock-on effect on local A&E services. 

Soon after being elected in July, I met with the Hartismere Hospital League of Friends to talk about how the hospital might provide a wider range of services for local residents so people didn’t have to travel to Norwich, Bury St Edmunds or Ipswich for treatment. 

As you will now, the hospital closed to in-patients in 2006 but, thanks to a campaign by local residents, it was kept open as a health and care centre for treatments like podiatry, physiotherapy, mental health care and rheumatology.   

If its facilities were upgraded, it could provide so much more.  Installing an X-ray machine would make a huge difference to local residents in both Norfolk and Suffolk. 

As well as dentistry and hospital services, there is a third area vital to healthcare where our area is badly served. We don’t have enough pharmacies. In the last year, nearly six pharmacies a week have shut their doors. One of them was a Boots pharmacy which closed in Bungay earlier this year. Others are reducing their hours. The loss of pharmacies has an outsized impact on rural areas where there is often no nearby alternative.  

The NHS Norfolk and Waveney integrated care board, which covers most of Waveney Valley, said it had seen the highest number of hours lost per pharmacy.  

So while I welcome the Health Secretary’s promise to turn the NHS into “a neighbourhood health service”, shifting care from hospitals to the community, the proof of the pudding will be in the eating.  

There is a huge amount of catching-up to do and it was alarming to see the Government back itself into a corner over its fiscal rules which just seemed to promise an extension of the austerity which has caused such damage to our public services over the past 14 years. 

So at the Budget at the end of this month, I hope the Chancellor will look at all options for increasing funding to the NHS, including being willing to call on the very richest in society to pay a little more in tax, in a way that could enable us to get the funding across all NHS services – dentistry, hospital care, GP surgeries and pharmacies – that is needed to keep pace with demand.