14 million without an NHS dental appointment: could therapists help unlock access?

"Dental therapists can do over 70% of routine primary care": Workforce redeployment proposed in face of 14 million Brits going without NHS appointments

The UK Dental Crisis

"...We do not have a lack of talent; we have a failure of deployment. Dental therapists can do over 70% of routine primary care."

Amanda Hack, Labour MP for Northwest Leicestershire

Despite the UK seeing a 5% increase in NHS dentist and dental nurse numbers, millions of British citizens are going without dental care, the house of commons has heard during a debate on the dental crisis and Labour party reforms.

According to Hack, there were nearly 47,000 dentists and 70,000 dental nurses as of May. However, it emerged during the debate that about 13 to 14 million Brits could get an NHS dental appointment when they needed one at the beginning of 2025.

During the near two-hour house debate on 16 June this year, MPs debated why NHS dentists were leaving the public sector and dental appointments were so hard to come by.

They said NHS dental practices were closing and struggling to make ends meet due to, for example, rising costs, missed appointments, and going unpaid if they worked over the NHS quota.

Hack said her area of "Northwest Leicestershire has the second lowest rate for units for dental activity in Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland" and has seen 15 practices close since February 2021.

In explaining the exodus and lack of access, Hack claimed dentists were overworked. She said the current workforce needs to be redeployed and pressed the government to implement a "tiered NHS dental service" that would see "dental nurses and dental therapists" taking on much more routine dental care work.

"[D]entists remain overstretched because patients are funnelled to them for almost everything-even cases that trained dental nurses, dental hygienists or dental therapists could safely handle."

"NHS data confirms that dental therapists and hygienists deliver just 5% of total service activity."

"That baseline has stagnated for years, trapping dentists under a mountain of activity when the entire workforce, if utilised, could make systematic improvements to dental care.”

"Just imagine the appointments that could be released if we just used the current workforce in a different way.”

Hack suggested the current workforce needed to be used "according to skills and experience, rather than according to what a dentist can and cannot do."

She went further, claiming dental nurses "have the greatest capacity to take on intervention and preventative work, and to work with flexibility and agility within the community and neighbourhood settings."

"Many," she said, "are already oral health practitioners in their own right."

From this year, a new training centre would train and retrain dental nurses and "healthcare professionals" "in dental hygiene and therapy alongside a foundational course" in Lincolnshire.

The Labour government has yet to produce a workforce plan for the NHS dental sector and give a clear deadline for its introduction.

In light of Hack’s comments, the question is what role artificial intelligence (AI) could play in deciding ahead of time which patients could be seen by a nurse or hygienist for a routine checkup or a dentist for complex care.

KELLS provides one such smart-phone and AI-led solution.

Using the KELLs app, Brits can obtain an AI-driven virtual checkup from home. They can provide a printed report to their dental clinic to determine whether a routine checkup, no checkup, or a dentist’s eye is required, potentially saving them and dentists time and money and freeing up dentists to treat people in real need of help.

KELLs also provides a round-the-clock dental advisor and second opinion service.