80% of North East patients find it difficult to get a dental appointment, Healthwatch survey suggests
Research conducted by Healthwatch in the North East has found that 80% of patients have experienced difficulties getting a dental appointment.
Healthwatch groups across the region collated data to obtain a picture of what is happening with dental services. The findings are alarming. Around 8 in 10 patients stated that they had struggled to see a dentist and many reported having to travel to get an appointment.
One patient made a 70-mile round trip from Hartlepool to Newcastle to get an NHS appointment, while many others had spent hours on the phone trying to find practices that had NHS adult places available.
The report, which was compiled using data collected between November 2021 and January 2022, suggested that just 6% of patients had turned to private dentistry, despite the fact that many said they felt that private patients were being prioritised. There were multiple reports of patients being informed that private appointments were readily available when NHS appointments were not.
Of those surveyed, more than 35% said that they had struggled to get an appointment when dealing with severe pain and one in 5 patients who required minor treatment, such as a filling, hadn’t received treatment.
Several people said they had ended up having urgent treatment for issues that could have been fixed if they were able to see a dentist sooner, including a man from Stockton who had to have an emergency extraction.
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