Extra urgent dental appointments for Wakefield welcomed by MP
The Government has announced that hundreds of thousands of people, including in Wakefield & Rothwell, will soon be able to access urgent and emergency dental care as the government and NHS rolls out 700,000 extra urgent appointments.
Simon Lightwood, MP for Wakefield & Rothwell welcomed the Government’s announcement, describing the new appointments as ‘vital’ and ‘desperately needed’.
From January- March last year, 52.4 per cent of patients who tried to see an NHS dentist in the last two years were unable to do so, with access to NHS dentistry increasingly a lottery across the country.
The announcement marks the start of the government and NHS delivering on the manifesto pledge to provide 700,000 extra urgent and emergency dental appointments to address the crisis in NHS dentistry.
In West Yorkshire, 32,312 urgent care appointments are to be delivered.
Simon Lightwood, MP for Wakefield & Rothwell said: “Everyone across Wakefield & Rothwell knows the scale of the challenge facing NHS dentistry after years of failure under the Tories.
“In recent years it has become near impossible to get an NHS dental appointment, and it is scandalous that the number one reason that five to nine-year-olds are admitted to hospital is because of tooth decay.
"I've been campaigning on this since I was first elected in 2022 - it was even the subject of my first Prime Minister's Question back in January 2023.
“Of course it cannot be rebuilt overnight, but I am delighted that this Labour Government is taking such an important step not only repairing NHS dentistry but making it fit for the future.
“Labour made a promise and is now delivering that promise through our Plan for Change.”
Stephen Kinnock, Minister of State for Care said: “We promised we would end the misery faced by hundreds of thousands of people unable to get urgent dental care. Today we’re starting to deliver on that commitment.
“NHS dentistry has been left broken after years of neglect with patients left in pain without appointments or queueing around the block just to be seen.
“Through our Plan for Change, this government will rebuild dentistry – focusing on prevention, retention of NHS dentists and reforming the NHS contract to make NHS work more appealing to dentists and increase capacity for more patients.
"This will take time but today marks an important step towards getting NHS dentistry back on its feet.”