Accessing Dental treatment in the North East and North Cumbria
Download (PDF 406.15 KB)Summary of report content
This report by Healthwatch North East and North Cumbria investigate the ease of accessing emergency dental treatment in the North East and North Cumbria. This data provides a snapshot in time of a resident in the North East and North Cumbria (NENC) without a regular dentist trying to get urgent dental care.
Using a mystery shopping dentistry script put together by the Healthwatch team, volunteers contacted 287 dental NHS contract holding practices between the 1st and the 15th February 2024. Healthwatch volunteers then contacted 117 private only dental practices on the 26th Feb 2024.
The key findings from this were :
• 9% of NHS contract holding practices offered an NHS appointment the same day or next day.
• 6 (2%) Offered an NHS appointment within 2-3 days.
• 18 (6%) Offered an NHS appointment more than 3 days away.
• 216 (75%) Offered no NHS appointments.
The report highlights the frustration of having to ring round multiple services until they ‘got lucky’, with services being unwilling or unable to help with signposting.
The report recommends a public information campaign to clarify NHS urgent care services, including the role of NHS 111, addressing regional care gaps and barriers to urgent dental treatment.
Healthwatch North East and North Cumbria are undertaking additional work to understand people’s experiences of contacting 111 for support.