The main health focus at the moment is largely on waiting times for GP appointments, ambulances and treatment at the Gloucestershire Royal Hospital (GRH).

There is a lot to resolve, in what one consultant described to me as a ‘perfect storm’ of events, including the worst flu for a decade.

Some things have in fact improved since the Christmas period e.g. South West Ambulance response times have halved, the average time lost per day in handovers is down by two thirds and the internal rating for the Ambulance Trust has moved from Red to Black for the first time in 2 years. The situation in the GRH has improved too. We all hope that health services' performance will continue to improve, and appreciate the hard work involved. 

But there is another health issue where things have not yet improved: the availability of NHS dentists. A number of frustrated constituents have also raised this and many more may feel the same way.

This is a national issue with 9 out of 10 practices nationally not accepting new NHS patients, including large numbers of children, and a number of dentists moving away from NHS practice. Things have to change.

I highlighted these and other problems in last October's dentistry debate: do see https://www.ukpol.co.uk/richard-graham-2022-speech-on-nhs-dentistry/ for more.

At the moment, unlike other areas of health, MPs have no easy way to tackle dentistry issues because local NHS organisations (now known as Integrated Care Boards) have no say in the contracts agreed centrally between NHS England and the dentists. Bluntly the 2006 deal is no longer working.

A dentist in Gloucester with 25 years’ experience told me:

“The majority of dentists move away from the NHS because of the continual pressures that the NHS contract places upon them in terms of requirements, payments, audits…and many other factors”.

She went on to argue that patients need more time to be treated and that dentists should therefore be paid more.