A check up on dental provision

A Department of Health survey completed by 926 people across Rochdale, Heywood and Middleton has revealed just 12 people who tried to get an appointment with an NHS dentist between January and March, 2010 failed to get seen.

The survey showed that across the borough 131 people attempted to see a dentist between January, 2010 and March this year.

Of those, 119 (91 per cent) were successful and only 12 (9 per cent) could not be seen.

Across England, the survey of 147,000 respondents showed 91 per cent of patients could get an appointment with 7 per cent not being able to and 2 per cent not remembering.

Of the surveys received, 206 showed that they have never tried to get an NHS dental appointment, with 17 per cent citing they didn’t need to visit as the reason why.

The survey carried out by Ipsos MORI on behalf of the DoH also revealed that the majority (75 per cent) of Rochdale, Heywood and Middleton residents last called their dentist to book a routine check up, with 362 patients doing so. In addition, 92 patients called for an urgent appointment.

Of the 2,836 forms distributed 926 (33 per cent) were received back.

The Government said the results demonstrated the scale of the challenge it faced to improve patient access.

A Department of Health spokeswoman said: “The proportion of people seeing an NHS dentist remains below levels before the new dental contract was introduced in March, 2006, despite three quarters of a billion pounds extra funding over five years.

“This new data shows that too many people who tried to see an NHS dentist were unable to do so, and many more have simply given up trying.