Dental Patients Using A&E Departments in West Yorkshire
A large number of dental patients are using Accident and Emergency departments in West Yorkshire because they cannot access local NHS services, according to a health watchdog.
Healthwatch claims that people are forced to visit urgent care facilities because they can’t get an appointment at an NHS dental clinic. Of the 250 people Healthwatch interviewed at emergency clinics in the region, 60 percent were not registered with an NHS dentist. The vast majority of those who visited the urgent clinics also did not need emergency treatment.
Healthwatch also claims that the government has “a poor understanding of what patients want” and accused NHS England of failing to find out why so many people are visiting emergency clinics and how they could improve the situation.
Research carried out by Healthwatch shows that use of emergency clinics is particularly high among young people and those with Southern Asian heritage. The main reason for visiting the clinics in most cases is the ability to access routine dental care and register with an NHS dentist.
Locality director at NHS England (Yorkshire and the Humber) Alison Knowles stated that NHS England was aware of the importance of access to everyday dental care, and said that funding had been made available for 10,000 additional adults in the last two years in Yorkshire and the Humber. NHS England is currently reviewing urgent dental care services in the hope of improving access to out of hours care and ensuring that more patients have access to a dentist during working hours.
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