Millions stay away from dentist because of cost

Hundreds of thousands of Londoners have never visited a dentist, figures reveal today.

Another million have not had a checkup in the past two years and could be suffering serious health problems as a result.

The figures are contained in a report that found government cost reforms are driving people away from the dentist.

The report follows claims that patients are resorting to do-it-yourself surgery, with cases of people pulling out their teeth with pliers.

An overhaul of dentists last year was supposed to make it easier for patients to receive NHS treatment but critics say it has made the problem worse.

Dentists are now paid a fixed salary by local health authorities and patients pay the same amount for one filling as they do for many - £43.60.

The reforms were designed to tempt more dentists into the NHS by giving them more money for seeing fewer patients.

But the scheme backfired when health bosses ran out of money to pay dental practices, meaning they are forced to turn away NHS patients who say it is too expensive anyway.

Today's report shows three London boroughs do not have a single NHS dentist prepared to take on new fee-paying patients and another three have fewer than 10.

The capital has more dentists per residents than the national average,with 51 NHS practitioners for every 100,000 Londoners compared with 42 to 100,000 in England as a whole.

Yet half of adults in London and almost a third of children have not had their teeth checked in the past two years.

The London Assembly investigated why so few people are having check-ups.

Joanne McCartney, who chairs the assembly's health and public services committee, said: "Perhaps the biggest barriers to NHS dental care are the costs of treatment, confusion about the costs of treatment and confusion about entitlements to free or reduced-cost care."

The investigation found inequalities in the number of dentists in different boroughs, with 40 NHS practices accepting fee-paying patients in Barnet, Redbridge, Ealing and Haringey.

In Brent, Sutton and Merton there is no NHS dentist prepared to treat fee-paying adults on the health service.

A survey of 1,000 Londoners carried out for the assembly found that 3.5 per cent - the equivalent to 205,000 people - had never visited a dentist.

It also found one in three people had delayed or gone without treatment, mainly because of cost, and more people were going private.

More than 30 per cent had private treatment at the last visit, compared with 24 per cent in a previous survey.

The report said: "Dentists play an important role in checking for signs of oral cancer and so symptoms are less likely to be noticed among people who attend a dentist less regularly."

It also said migrants were struggling to find dentists because of language problems and called on health bosses to draw up a plan for improvements.

NUMBER OF NHS DENTISTS IN YOUR AREA TAKING ON NEW PATIENTS OF ALL TYPES

Barking and Dagenham 16
Barnet 42
Bexley 12
Brent 0
Bromley 11
Camden 29
City and Hackney 28
Croydon 24
Ealing 49
Enfield 23
Greenwich 26
Hammersmith and Fulham 30
Haringey 47
Harrow 27
Havering 22
Hillingdon 19
Hounslow 31
Islington 20
Kensington and Chelsea 21
Kingston** 2
Lambeth 37
Lewisham 31
Newham 28
Redbridge 41
Richmond 9
Southwark 35
Sutton and Merton** 0
Tower Hamlets 18
Waltham Forest 29
Wandsworth 5
Westminster 33

** Information for these PCTs was not available for April 2007, so figures are based on analysis from September 2006