Fewer people visiting NHS dentists
Updated on 21 May 2009
Fewer people are seeing NHS dentists than they were prior to the introduction of the new dental contract, figures confirm.
More than 27 million people visited their dentist in England in the two-year period ending December 2008, representing 53.4% of the population.
But the figure was 900,000 down on the number seeing dentists before the new dental contracts were introduced.
The system was overhauled in April 2006 with the new dental contract intended to simplify charges and make it easier to find an NHS dentist.
Findings from the NHS Information Centre revealed that 27.3 million people saw a dentist in the two -year period ending in December 2008, a rise of 300,000 from the figure three months earlier in September 2008.
But the number of patients seen was still 3.1% less than the figure in the two year period ending 31 March 2006, immediately before the introduction of the new contracts.
The report; NHS Dental Statistics for England: Quarter 3 also shows that in England, NHS dentists saw 49% (19.7 million) of the adult population in the two-year period ending 31 December 2008.
This represented a 1.1% increase on the previous period ending in September 2008 but a 3.4% decrease on the numbers of adults seeing a dentist in the two-year period prior to the introduction of the new dental contract.
This trend was echoed with children with the number visiting dentists down by 200,000 (2.4%) on the pre-contract figures.
The new contract, under which patients pay fixed charges for particular types of procedure, gives local primary care trusts the power to commission and pay for dental services.
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