NHS dental services in 'death spiral', councillors warn

DESPERATE people are performing their own dental work because of a chronic shortage of NHS provision in the region.

Councillors said the system was in a “death spiral”, with an increasing number of practices going private and dentists leaving the area or the profession altogether.

A family of Ukrainian refugees had even travelled back to their war-torn homeland because they could be seen there quicker, a council meeting heard.

NHS bosses admitted there was a “workforce crisis” but said they were trying innovative ways to improve the situation, including offering more favourable contracts to dentists.

South Gloucestershire Council health scrutiny committee members said they were not reassured and that wholescale changes were needed.

Kingswood ward councillor Andrea Reid said: “In terms of people performing their own treatment, we are way past that point. It’s not a future tense we are trying to avoid, it’s already happening.

“The NHS dentist students are staying for a year, realising they can make more money in the private sector and they leave.”

New Cheltenham ward councillor Sandie Davis said she had heard of a foster carer looking after a child who had to travel back to her former home town of Swindon after being unable to find a dentist anywhere in South Gloucestershire and the surrounding area.

She added: “There is a family who took in some Ukrainian refugees and they couldn’t find a dentist so they travelled at Christmas back to war-torn Ukraine to see a dentist. It’s just shocking.”

Frenchay & Downend ward councillor James Griffiths said: “We’ve had local dentists go private and send a letter to all the residents saying,‘you’ve no longer got an NHS dentist and if you’ve got a family of four,