- Dental patients in Penrith and The Border are to benefit from access to more appointments thanks to a £50 million national government funding injection.
- The northwest is to get £7,310,000 as part of the funding to secure up to 350,000 additional dental appointments across the country allowing people suffering from oral pain, disease, and infection to get the care they need, as services drive back to pre-pandemic levels.
Children, people with learning disabilities, autism, or severe mental health problems, will be prioritised as part of a dentistry treatment push over the coming months, with the one-off funding available until the end of the financial year.
Locally, NHS teams will use the funds to secure increase care capacity amongst local dentists already operating to help patients suffering from oral ill-health.
Dentists involved in the scheme will be paid more than a third on top of their normal sessional fee for delivering this care outside of core hours, such as early morning and weekend work.
During the pandemic, the NHS has protected dentists’ income when strict infection prevention control guidance meant dentists needed to operate at severely reduced capacity.
Infection prevention control measures were significantly eased in November 2021 and since the start of this year the NHS has required dental practices to operate at 85% of their pre-pandemic contracted activity, the latest stage in the return to pre-pandemic workloads for NHS dentists.
Welcoming the news, Penrith and The Border MP, commented:
“This is an important funding boost to dental facilities in the north west. Dental services are a vital part of the NHS providing oral health care to all age groups, and that’s why this financial support is so welcome. In the midst of the pandemic fewer people were visiting dentists for essential procedures, this move will help to get dentistry back to pre-pandemic levels allowing hundreds of thousands of people to undergo the dental treatments they need.”
Minister for Primary Care Maria Caulfield added:
“Access to NHS dentistry has been given a much-needed boost with an extra £50 million announced for NHS dental care services which will urgently give more people access to vital dental care when they need it.
“Through the pandemic, we have prioritised urgent dental needs, vulnerable patients and free treatment for children and thanks to the hard work of staff, the delivery of urgent care is back to pre-pandemic levels. We are now working with the dental sector to recover and reform services and this £50 million boost will help with that recovery”.
