Campaigner to meet with health bosses over NHS dental void
Practices offering NHS dentist appointments in Wiltshire have fallen by 14% in the last 10 years
A campaigner pushing for improved NHS dental access in Salisbury is to meet with Wiltshire health bosses, who say they recognise the issue.
Victoria Charleston, a local Councillor and the city's Liberal Democrat MP candidate, contacted the Bath, North East Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire Integrated Care Board (ICB) about the problems after seeing repeated complaints about the lack of provision in the city.
As part of her campaign, she's been gathering stories from people living in the city, which include people travelling miles for NHS dental care.
We can share out experiences with her here.
Figures released this week by Nuffield Trust revealed a 14% drop in practices across Wiltshire offering NHS appointments in the last decade.
Cllr Charleston said that figure isn't a surprise to her.
"When I looked myself at the NHS website, which says all the different dentists in the Salisbury area, there are very few that are offering, I think there was two that were actually offering NHS appointments. And when I called those up and said, can I register as an NHS patient, they said, no, what you can do is call up every single day and see if we get a cancellation and we can fit you in," she said.
Cllr Charleston added it's a massive problem that isn't limited to just Salisbury or South Wiltshire.
Health bosses agree there is an issue
After contacting the ICB, she received a letter from them just before her summer holiday this month, in which the organisation recognised the issue.
"They said it's something they're very, very aware of and they are very keen to work with me to see what we can do to make things better in Salisbury. So in the next coming days I will look to book in that meeting with them and see if we can start to work out how we can shift this and what we could do to improve things in Salisbury," she told us.
It's something Cllr Charleston is keen to push beyond the boundaries of the city, as far a Tisbury and the New Forest as more NHS services are needed.
Her aim is to establish new NHS practices in the city and follow in the footsteps of Lib Dem colleagues in Somerset who achieved that goal in their constituencies.
Getting to the root of why NHS appointments are vanishing
Among the talking points for Cllr Charleston to raise will be what is driving the shift from NHS to private dental appointments for practices.
She said it is her understanding that the motive is financial, but it's something she wants to discuss with the ICB.
"My understanding is like with all sorts of areas of the NHS, the government pays a set amount for services and I don't believe what the government is paying covers the cost of the service. and there it is not for it is not financially viable for dentists to be offering NHS services," she said.
Cllr Charleston added that the lack of NHS dental provision is just another to put on the list of crisis in the service for the Government.
Ministers have recognised the problems people are facing, with then-Minister for Health, Stephen Kinnock, saying that people shouldn't be forced into situations where they're pulling their own teeth out.
The Government says it's also expanding training for dentists to have more qualified professionals and offer more appointments.