MPs call for better access to NHS dental services
Getty ImagesMPs from across the political spectrum have called for access to NHS dental services to be improved in Sussex.
Alison Griffiths, MP for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton, said a pensioner in her constituency had "spent years trying to navigate a system where practices close, move private, or stop taking NHS patients".
"She is still trying to find care she can afford," added the Conservative politician.
During a special Parliamentary debate care minister Stephen Kinnock said there had been 11% more treatments in Sussex between April and October last year compared to the same period before the general election.
The government claims it is spending £350m more a year on NHS dentistry and that it will employ thousands of additional dentists.
'Future looking less certain'
Liberal Democrat MP for Horsham John Milne said some of his constituents had been removed from the dental register "simply because there are not enough dentists left who are willing to operate on NHS contracts".
"It is distressing enough for patients, but it is also deeply frustrating for dental professionals," he said.
The British Dental Association has long argued for reforms to the NHS contract, which it has called "ridiculous and discredited".
Kinnock previously said the government had a long-term plan to reform the whole dental contract before the next election.
The MP for Chichester, Jess Brown-Fuller, said 63% of adults in Sussex had not seen a dentist in the two years leading up to June 2025.
Four in 10 children had not seen a dentist during that time, she continued.
Dr Agi Tarnowski, chair of the West Sussex Local Dental Committee, said some parts of the dental service had improved.
But she added a "lot of work needed to be done to go back to a situation we would have been in 20 or 30 years ago".
"As government instability and structural changes are happening, there is a real risk things will get derailed," Tarnowski told BBC Radio Sussex.
"The future is looking less certain for NHS dentistry".
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