Access to NHS dental care in Walsall
Download (PDF 1.11 MB)Summary of report content
This is a report by Healthwatch Walsall. The project looks at experiences of dental care in the local area.
A survey was used to gather the views of local people. A total of 119 responses were recieved.
A key finding from the survey was that Walsall mirrors the national picture with a fifth of people saying that they had not been able to access an NHS dentist in the last year. People are unable to find an NHS dentist taking on new patients.
There are recommendations in this report.
1. The issues with access to NHS dental care are not unique to Walsall and at the time of writing this report, the Government have not yet published their NHS dentistry recovery plan. The responsibility for contracting NHS dental care in Walsall sits with the Black
Country ICB and there is therefore a need for them to act on the issues around capacity at least in the short term. Healthwatch Walsall commit to raise this with the ICB and ascertain what their plans are.
2. There are issues around understanding the registration process for NHS dental services and therefore it is recommended that there is consistency of approach from dental practices offering NHS treatment and that this is communicated to the public both by the
ICB and the relevant dental practices. Healthwatch Walsall commit to following this up with the ICB.
3. It is recommended that NHS dental practices offer flexibility in appointment times to ensure that people who are at work are able to access appointments.
4. It is recommended that both the ICB and dental practices ensure that there is publicly available information about how to access dental care in the event of an urgent or emergency need, making use of NHS 111 to ensure that people are not contacting already
stretched services at GP practices or Accident and Emergency departments. Healthwatch Walsall commit to following this up with the ICB.
5. Patients who are no longer an NHS patient should consider contacting dentists around Walsall to check if they are recruiting/registering NHS patients. Availability may change from dentist to dentist as registration lists fill up.
6. Where patients have been removed as an NHS patient from their dental practice, they should seek to re-register with the same provider or another local Dentist. The ICB should provide publicly available information on how to re-register.
There are no follow up actions in the report.