Labor has promised to create 100,000 extra dental appointments for children in a bid to clear backlogs in England.
The new appointments will be for urgent and urgent care and evenings and weekends, under Labor’s plan if they win the general election.
Access to an NHS dentist is becoming increasingly difficult in many areas – with tooth decay the most common reason children aged five to nine are admitted to hospital.
Conservatives have their own ‘dental restoration plan’ which was released at the beginning of the year and offers dentists cash incentives to take on extra NHS patients.
Labour’s plans, announced on Tuesday, also include a plan to introduce supervised brushing for children, double the number of NHS scanners and reform dentists’ contracts to increase numbers where they are needed.
The £109m pledge will be paid for by tightening offshore tax rules and cracking down on tax avoidance, Labor said.
Data published in February showed that thousands of children and teenagers were admitted to hospital for tooth decay treatment.
In 2023 almost 48,000 tooth extractions were carried out in NHS hospitals in England for patients aged up to 9 years. Two-thirds of these were due to a primary diagnosis of tooth decay – a 17% increase on the previous 12 months.
Children’s tooth extractions cost NHS hospitals £64.3m last year, with tooth decay-related extractions accounting for £40.7m of this.
Labor leader Sir Keir Starmer and shadow health secretary Wes Streeting will unveil Labour’s ‘Child Health Action Plan’ as part of an election campaign in the north-east of England on Tuesday.
Ahead of the visit, Mr Streeting said Labour’s plans would help “put smiles back on children’s faces”.
“What a tragic indictment of the state of NHS dentistry under the Conservatives, that children are embarrassed to speak because of the state of their teeth,” he said, citing a survey of 11-year-olds.
Mr Streeting told the BBC’s Breakfast show that the party was looking to take preventive measures for children’s overall health, including dentistry.
Labor claims the “crisis in NHS dentistry under the Tories” led to 540,000 fewer children seeing the dentist last year than in 2018.
This figure is broadly correct, according to the latest NHS figures. In the year to 30 June 2023, 6,372,892 children saw a dentist – up from 6,953,916 in the year to 31 December 2018.
However, according to analysis by BBC Verify, these numbers have been steadily recovering since 2021 – after falling significantly during the pandemic.
The Conservative Party has claimed that their dental plan has already resulted in 500 additional practices opening their doors to NHS patients and created an additional 2.5 million NHS appointments in 2024.
The Lib Dems plan to introduce an emergency scheme that would guarantee free tests for children, young mothers, pregnant women and those on low incomes. The party also said it would fix the NHS dental contract to bring back dentists from the private sector.
The Green Party plans to spend £50 billion on health and social care, including giving everyone access to an NHS dentist. He plans to reform the convention and pay for all of this by raising tax rates on the rich.
The Reform Party has not yet released its manifesto.
