'A historic hangover’: Scarborough and Whitby MP says issues with accessing dental care ‘not acceptable’

The closure of Eastfield’s dental practice and the issues faced by many trying to access dental care have been raised at a meeting of North Yorkshire County Council’s Area Committee for Scarborough and Whitby.

The member of parliament for Scarborough and Whitby, Sir Robert Goodwill, was questioned by councillors at the meeting, which took place on November 25.

Cllr Tony Randerson said: “I’m sure you’ll agree with me that it is an absolute disgrace that it is now approaching two years that a vast majority of residents in Eastfield still do not have access to a dentist. This is the 21st century, this is absolutely deplorable.”

He added: “This should have happened in the summer; we were promised a dentist in the summer months, and it is now nearly Christmas.

“Can you utilise your good office to encourage NHS England to speed up that process as much as possible?”

Cllr Randerson also thanked the MP for his previous help trying to reopen Eastfield’s dental practice, which closed in early 2021 because it was not able to recruit enough dentists.

Speaking at the meeting, Sir Robert Goodwill MP said: “I’ll do whatever I can because in Eastfield we had a big practice dealing with most people, treating most people, and when it closed they were left high and dry.

“And these are people who take their dental health seriously, who have been visiting and taking their children to the dentist. Of course, we are storing up problems for the future if our children aren’t getting regular dental checks.”

Research published earlier this year has suggested that the top reason for primary school-age children being admitted to hospital is tooth decay and Mr Goodwill said that the difficulties faced by people wishing to visit a dentist was “not an acceptable situation”.

The Conservative MP added that a big issue was the “way that the NHS delivers dental treatment”.

He said: “It is through these units of dental activity (UDA) and there are thousands of units of UDAs out there in North Yorkshire for grabs, the problem is that dental practices are not picking them up.”

He said that the way “more complex treatments are remunerated” had impacted whether the units were “picked up” by practices.

Mr Goodwill added: “It is slightly ironic that there are some quite wealthy people who tell me they are massive supporters of the NHS and they are using NHS dentists, which is not free.

“And you have poor people on limited incomes, on benefits, some of them pensioners, who can’t get access to an NHS dentist at all. It is a sort of historic hangover of the situation that most people have with NHS dentists.”

He added: “There is no doubt that you make more money doing private work and you can probably do more complex work.”