It’s not uncommon for Laura Marsham to see a child having 10 teeth pulled out during the Saturday morning shift at the hospital.
“It’s really shocking,” says the dental assistant. “They’re losing half their teeth.”
These are early warning signs of a children’s dental health crisis that experts predict will mean an unexpected return to dentures and will already see a generation lose sleep and school time due to the pain of tooth decay.
Ms Marsham noted a significant increase in the decline since the pandemic. She says the solution is checks “every six months.”
“If you wait until you have a problem, nine times out of ten the tooth will disappear. It has to go.”
But there is a problem. Children cannot easily get NHS appointments, let alone visit the dentist every six months, unless I in return, her parents pay for private treatment.
In the 12 months to June 2022, 46.2% of children in England visited a dentist, compared with 52.7% before the pandemic, according to NHS statistics.
Part of the problem with getting dental appointments is due to the backlog caused by the pandemic.
But critics say the root of the problem lies in a deeply flawed, dysfunctional and inflexible NHS contract system that dentists say underfunds their work.
They vote with their feet and go private according to the scale described I as “bleeding” from experienced staff. And patients who cannot afford to follow them are lost.
“We don’t have pickets of dentists anywhere in the country. We have a workforce that is changing the way we deliver services to the public,” said Eddie Crouch, Chairman of the Board of the British Dental Association (BDA). The BDA recently reported that half of the dentists have cut their NHS work.
Only 20% of UK National Health Service dental clinics are accepting new pediatric patients, according to data released by the BBC last August. Government data shows that tooth decay remains the leading cause of hospital admissions for children between the ages of six and ten, with more than 25,000 children having their caries removed in the hospital last year.
But the need for dental care is greater than ever. The pandemic has resulted in 38 million hours of missed dental appointments. Meanwhile, the sudden explosion of homeschooling also meant easy access to unhealthy foods, which worsened children’s oral health.
Children come to the dentist with “much more serious dental problems than before the pandemic because they lose the ability to take preventive measures and actually stop cavities,” says Crouch.
“Children show up with problems that are too serious to actually do anything to change their teeth,” he adds.
“There is a group of kids who are wasting time at school, they are losing sleep [because of the pain]”.
The UK was at a point where dentures were often unnecessary in old age, but Crouch says progress is on the verge of being reversed.
“Many young people can get worse from losing their teeth and having to wear dentures that their grandparents had to wear decades ago,” he says.
“Children’s teeth deteriorate”
Children’s oral health is getting worse and worse, says Laura Marsham, who also works as an oral health instructor for the Teeth Team.
“When we go to these schools, there are kids with a high dropout rate.
“It affects their free time at school, it affects their ability to concentrate, it affects their confidence because they don’t want to smile.
“It’s getting worse and worse. Before Covid, you could see the first one with one or two rotten teeth, and now we see them with six, seven, eight rotten teeth.
Removing baby teeth due to decay affects adult teeth, says Marsham.
“Essentially, baby teeth guide adult teeth to where they need to go. If these milk teeth are not present, adult teeth can indeed erupt in any position, which will affect them during adolescence because they need orthodontic treatment. “
Lack of access to NHS dentist appointments presents parents with difficult and costly choices.
According to recent data presented to the Board of Health and Welfare in connection with the NHS dental crisis, some children will only be asked to make an appointment if their parents pay for private treatment themselves.
Data from the Healthwatch patient panel showed that some parents felt their children were cut off from NHS healthcare.
One parent said: “I have been trying to find an NHS dentist for my 10 year old daughter, myself and my husband. One dentist said they could put us on a waiting list for three years. Another told me that the only way for me and my husband to see my daughter was to take a private seat for £75 for an initial consultation.
“This is outrageous and makes people demand a ransom so that their children can access basic dental care.”
Children under 18 are eligible for free NHS dental treatment in England, while adults pay between £23.80 and £282.80 depending on the treatment. Private care can be significantly more expensive, with a new patient consultation costing between £20 and £120, compared to a flat fee of £23.80 for the NHS.
Louise Ansari, National Director of Healthwatch England, says dentistry is a major concern for patients across the country, with “disturbing” stories of lack of access.
“We have heard from some children who, due to poor access to NHS dentistry, have never visited a dentist and therefore missed important checkups and prevention tips,” she says.
“The government and the NHSE have taken action in recent months, but fundamental changes are still needed to rebuild NHS dentistry. We urgently need to make it accessible and affordable to all, with a focus on fighting inequality.”
Crouch described the “manipulation of parents for the purpose of privacy” as “unethical”. The NHS dental contract system had to be torn apart to make way for a massive reform, he said.
Without doing anything, he warned that it might be necessary to have “open and honest” discussions with the public about what to expect in the future in terms of dental care.
In January 2022, the government announced £50 million in emergency dental visits for those most at risk, including children.
However, the British Society for Pediatric Dentistry (BSDP) states that “the current contract with the NHS dentist is not up to the mark and needs urgent reform”.
President Jenny Harris says, “This does not work in pediatric or pediatric dentistry and does not support prevention. We are seeing a record number of dentists getting their NHS contracts back. Urgent action is needed to stop the bleeding by experienced teams experienced in caring for these children.
“The tragedy is that the most vulnerable in our community suffer the most. We know that children from lower socioeconomic groups are more likely to develop caries and have more problems accessing health care.
“Without early access to prevention-focused dental services, our children are paying the price in pain, sleep disruption, impact on school readiness and learning. Ultimately, the British society will bear the cost as invasive treatment will be required later, including additional removals and procedures under general anesthesia.”
Chris Groombridge, chairman of the Teeth Team, says the government doesn’t understand the importance of funding youth prevention work.
His charity visits schools to educate children about healthy eating and oral hygiene, but he wonders: “Should the oral health of the nation’s children be based on goodwill?
“Many parents know their kids need to go to the dentist but can’t find a place to see them. They hurt their children at night, sleepless nights, it interferes with their learning, it keeps the parents awake at night.
Groombridge added: “NHS Dentistry is on the brink of bankruptcy due to contract failure. Unless urgent action is taken, inequality, social disadvantage and the life chances of children will turn out to be largely negative, which in turn will hinder the success of the UK as a nation.”
A spokesman for the Department of Health and Welfare said the number of children seen by NHS dentists has increased by 43.6% over the past year and that “more than £3bn a year is spent on dentistry for the entire NHS”. .
“We have allowed NHS dental clinics to provide 10 percent of NHS services on top of their contracts to improve patient access, and have recently removed barriers to support staff such as internists and hygienists to make additional appointments. “
“I have phenomenal waiting lists”
No matter how hard Mark Green works, there is always something to work on.
The dentist, now in his 30s, says: “That’s why a lot of people who are still on the NHS are fed up, they just feel like they can’t do anything about it. The only way to do anything about it, for her own mental well-being, is to leave the NHS and move into private life. I had an NHS practice that I sold, I couldn’t hire staff, so now I’m working for someone else because the stress of managing the practice, dental care and all the stuff to do in the NHS was too much.
Green says he sees kids who need multiple types of treatment.
“The problem with decomposition… you can’t see it, but it’s there. At some point, you come in with a chipped tooth. It is not broken, but because it has been undermined by decay. An X-ray or a good examination would probably have revealed it, but they couldn’t get in.”
Green says his clinic is trying to get through a “phenomenal” waiting list, but there are only two NHS dentists left, including himself. Patients have been waiting for fillings for three months.
He says the NHS contract is ‘wrong’
“There is a shortfall. The irony is that the money goes back to the government… And that’s because it’s a bad contract.”
He says the agreement leaves no room for preventive work, such as nutritional counseling and oral hygiene, which are vital for children.
Source: I News
I’m Raymond Molina, a professional writer and journalist with over 5 years of experience in the media industry. I currently work for 24 News Reporters, where I write for the health section of their news website. In my role, I am responsible for researching and writing stories on current health trends and issues. My articles are often seen as thought-provoking pieces that provide valuable insight into the state of society’s wellbeing.