The Isle of Wight’s dental crisis is getting worse day-by-day, a local health watchdog has warned this week.
It comes as pressures increase and health officials have been urged to act now and not wait months to find a solution.
An update and complaints were heard at the Isle of Wight Council’s health and social care scrutiny committee on Monday about the state of the Island’s dentistry.
It follows the change from national oversight provided by NHS England to a more localised approach by the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Integrated Care Board (ICB).
Jo York, the ICB’s interim dentistry lead, said she understood the Island’s issues but there were issues across the country the NHS England team were having to deal with. The transition was going well, Ms York said, and they have been able to build relationships with dental practices as well as using local resources to answer the Island’s needs.
However, she recognised the Island had significant challenges which had been exacerbated by the COVID pandemic including access to dentists and retention and recruitment of workforce.
A previous attempt to recruit to a new, bigger Island dental practice was unsuccessful earlier this year so now, Ms York said, the ICB was looking to do something different. She said it was a case of trying to make national changes as the main dentistry contract restricts new ways forward.
A solution, however, may take at least 6 to 9 months should it need to be procured but if the ICB could do something more innovative and work with local dentists it could be quicker.
Joanna Smith, manager of watchdog organisation Healthwatch Isle of Wight, said the ICB needed to act urgently as the situation was getting worse for Islanders day by day. She said:
“Some Islanders cannot wait six to nine months when they have been waiting years.
“There is a huge backlog of need, some people have never been able to access a dentist.”
Councillor John Nicholson, chair of the committee, said the NHS commissioners had managed to make it an appalling mess.
It was resolved the committee would ask Isle of Wight MP Bob Seely to speak to the Health Secretary, Steve Barclay, requesting he look into the roles of those responsible in the NHS for the planning, provision and delivering of dental services, due to the ‘complete collapse of the existing structure’ for patients and dentists under their tenure.
Access to dentists has nothing to do with covid, it was bad before anyway. Where is our so called travesty of an MP on this subject, not present as usual, too busy crowing about housing and planning changes. It won’t get any better, very rare to even manage to see a doctor still due to covid apparently, how long with they use that as an excuse. If they can’t do the job as they used to. Cut the salaries and force them too. This country is to damn soft nowadays.
What do they mean getting worse, there is no access to
NHS dentist on the Isle of Wight.
Why is it a dentist cannot offer NHS treatment but the same dentist can offer a private appointment on the same day and time. Is it do do with money making I wonder.
Unfortunately the money a NHS dentist makes is a lot less than a private dentist.
At the moment the NHS dentist do not get paid enough, so have to change to private or they cant pay there bills.
I got an idea why not build hundreds of new houses and just hope that someone that moves over from the mainland is a dentist
Didn’t see a solution in all that waffle. And our MP should already have banged hard on the Health Secretary’s door.
You cannot force people to become dentists and move to an area you want them in. No amount of waffle and chatter from the politicians who are just sat around a table, drinking tea, talking about the problem, will change anything. Unless they are going to change careers from MP’s to become dentists, then I suggest they stop their BS.
instead of building more and more houses, whilst ignoring the ever increasing demand for dental services, the council put a stop to more taxpayer funded moves to the island and call a halt to all new house building.
I trust the same watchdog is looking at GP availability
Tell us something we don’t know !!!! If you can’t afford to go private you just end up suffering , of which so many do….
We actually need a solution to this problem ….
We don’t need housing for 2nd home owners or holiday let’s we only need housing for islanders…..
Most NHS dentists have gone private ….