Urgent dental care centres forced to close as funding dries up.

Dental practices across the UK were advised to close their practices on 26th March, and NHS and local dental committees set up urgent dental care centres in their place to help deal with emergency dental treatments. Four such urgent dental care centres were set up across Hertfordshire to provide care for 1.2 million people on the understanding that additional funding would become available. However, this promise from LDCs and Local Dental Networks has not come to fruition, and not only have NHS commissioners blocked any more funding, they are now saying that dental practices must use existing NHS contract payments to fund the service. Additional funding for the NHS during the COVID-19 pandemic was promised by the government but only Thames Valley and Wessex have received any to provide urgent dental centres.

Director of primary care and public health for NHS England and NHS Improvement in the east of England, Rachel Webb, said: “People across the east of England can be treated for urgent or emergency dental problems at one of the urgent dental care hubs in the region. We are constantly working with all of our providers of these hubs to ensure services meet patients’ needs. Anyone who needs urgent or emergency dental care should call their usual dentist in the first instance or use the NHS 111 online service available for advice on what to do.”