Selaine Saxby, MP for North Devon, spoke in an Opposition Day debate in Parliament on Tuesday 9th January to highlight the effect of rurality when it comes to the availability of dental services.
Selaine thanked the new Dentistry Minister, Andrea Leadsom, for her engagement on the issue and looks forward to the Department’s plans on dentistry which will be coming out “very shortly.” Selaine asked for the plan to be expedited due to the size of the current waitlist in North Devon.
Delivering most healthcare solutions in a rural environment will be different to an urban one. Selaine suggested short term local solutions including mobile dentistry units, such as buses, to cover remote places in North Devon. Out of area dentists are already coming to North Devon to care for fishermen as patients, it would be a welcomed step forward to see a similar system made accessible to other residents.
In October 2023, Selaine submitted a parliamentary petition calling for emergency dental provision in North Devon and received a response from the Minister in December. Improvements have been made with the dental helpline where patients with a dental emergency can contact the emergency dental service via the dental helpline on 03330 063 300, to arrange a same day or next day appointment wherever possible within Devon. However, due to North Devon’s rural nature, the reality is that some of these appointments are miles away making it difficult or impossible for people to attend.
Measures have been introduced to tackle the problem in the long term, in September 2022, the Department announced changes to improve the NHS dental system through “Our Plan for Patients”. The plan set out how the Government will meet oral health needs and increase access to dental care. In 2022/23, 1.7 million more adults and 800,000 more children saw an NHS dentist than in the previous year. The Department have confirmed in the Chamber that reforms to the dental plan will be coming shortly.
Selaine Saxby, MP for North Devon said:
“Please be assured that I take the issue of dentistry very seriously. In this debate I raised the urgency of the cases that I have seen in my inbox and highlighted how local solutions are needed, especially due to the rural and coastal nature of North Devon.
“I thanked the Minister for her engagement on this issue and I was assured that some good news from the Department will be coming “very shortly”, in the form of a dental reform plan. Once this is confirmed, I will provide an update and I hope that this will be a step forward in alleviating some of the shortage we are seeing. It is also reassuring to hear the new Secretary of State for Health mention the context of rurality in her speech and how this can negatively impact residents when it comes to finding a dentist, I hope that the new plan will take real steps towards resolving these problems.”
