NHS Digital stats show drop in visits to NHS dentists

NHS Digital statistics have calculated that 22 million adults in England went to an NHS dentist within the last 2 years, which is a reduction of 98,445 on last year, and represents about 50.7% of adults, of which 56.1% s were in the north of the country and 44.3% were in London.
In terms of availability, there was an increase of 1.3% of dentists carrying out NHS treatment, but the quantity of treatments delivered fell by 1.8% to around 83.2 million units of dental activity. 5.5 million children received fluoride varnish treatment, which was the most common treatment, and in adults it was the scale and polish, which represented 45.7% of all treatments.
Henrik Overgaard-Nielsen, chair of the British Dental Association’s General Dental Practice, said: “Sadly the Government has shown no interest in getting hard to reach families to attend, when prevention could save our NHS millions.”
An NHS representative said: “The number of dentists providing NHS services continues to increase. Most importantly for our patients, when people need to get an NHS dentist appointment they are almost always able to get one. Nine times out of 10, their experience is positive.”