Labour has pledged to establish an additional 100,000 dental appointments for children, aiming to alleviate the backlog in England.
These appointments, available during evenings and weekends, will cater to urgent and emergency care needs, as part of Labour’s strategy if they secure victory in the upcoming general election.
Accessing an NHS dentist has become a growing challenge in numerous regions, with tooth decay being the primary reason for hospital admissions among children aged five to nine.
The Conservatives have responded with their “dental recovery plan”, launched earlier this year, which incentivizes dentists with financial rewards to accept more NHS patients.
Labour unveiled their plans on Tuesday, which encompass the introduction of supervised brushing for children, doubling the number of NHS scanners, and reforming dentists’ contracts to increase their presence where required. Labour intends to fund this £109m commitment by tightening non-domestic tax rules and combating tax evasion.
According to data released in February, thousands of children and teenagers were hospitalized for tooth decay treatment. In 2023, nearly 48,000 tooth extractions were performed in NHS hospitals in England on patients up to the age of 9. Two-thirds of these procedures were due to a primary diagnosis of tooth decay, marking a 17% increase from the previous year. The cost of childhood tooth extractions to NHS hospitals last year was £64.3m, with decay-related extractions accounting for £40.7m of this total.