One dentist in Gillingham puts these figures down to there being not enough new practices opening and dentists moving into the private sector. Nia Price reports.
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00:00More than 1,000 patients on the waiting list for this dentist in Gillingham.
00:05So why do so many not have a dentist?
00:08Since the pandemic, less and less dentists are available as a workforce.
00:15It's nationally, but especially in Kent, we have noticed that the number of dentists have
00:21either retired or have moved just into the private sector.
00:30We have a lower number of dentists that they want to locate into Kent.
00:35The majority of dentists, they want to work into London.
00:39We are working hard on it.
00:41We actually have the workforce, but they are at this point in time just registered as therapists.
00:48They are overseas qualified dentists, but it takes a long process for the GDC to acknowledge
00:53their registration.
00:54There's two exams that can take up to 18 months for those exams to be completed, for them
00:59to be acknowledged and be able to work as a dentist.
01:02One in seven people in Kent and Medway don't have a dentist, which is the highest rate
01:07across the southeast of England.
01:09That's also higher than the average of one in eight across the whole of England.
01:14This is shown by recent figures released from the Office for National Statistics Health
01:17Insights survey.
01:19I came to the high streets in Rochester and Maidstone to find out how hard people are
01:23finding it to access a dentist.
01:25I've had the same one most of my life, but when I couldn't get an appointment to a
01:28dentist, I tried going elsewhere and found it very, very difficult.
01:31At the moment, it's been quite hard because they are switching from NHS to private, so
01:38obviously I'm through the NHS, so they've been putting them back and prioritising the
01:44private patients.
01:46I've never used a dentist, yeah.
01:49I've been struggling to find one.
01:51It's pretty good.
01:52Mind you, I've had two cancellations just recently because she's doing something else,
01:58so I've had to cancel it and re-book my appointment.
02:01But it's quite easy to get an appointment.
02:04Thank you so much for joining me.
02:07No problem.
02:08I spoke to Councillor Theresa Murray to hear about what Medway Council are doing about
02:12the issue.
02:13We have talked about, well, could we get a school of dentistry as part of one of our
02:19universities because we haven't got that on our local campus.
02:25I think it's about working individually with our dentists and seeing how things are going,
02:29so I have spoken directly to some practices about this, and as I say, some are still taking
02:35NHS patients.
02:38So one of the things that we can do through our public health team is to signpost people
02:44to dentists that we know are still taking NHS patients.
02:47The Department for Health and Social Care said in a statement it's unacceptable that
02:51people are struggling to find a dentist.
02:54They are committed to rebuilding the sector and say they'll start with an extra 700,000
02:59urgent appointments and will reform the dental contract to make it more appealing to dentists.
03:06Nia Price for KMTV.