{"id":113410,"date":"2025-09-04T07:11:14","date_gmt":"2025-09-04T07:11:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/113410\/"},"modified":"2025-09-04T07:11:14","modified_gmt":"2025-09-04T07:11:14","slug":"thurrock-has-fewest-nhs-dental-practices-per-head-in-essex","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/113410\/","title":{"rendered":"Thurrock has fewest NHS dental practices per head in Essex"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alexander StevanovicBBC News, Essex<\/p>\n

\"PAPA Media<\/p>\n

There are about 10 NHS dentist practices for every 100,000 people in Thurrock<\/p>\n

Thurrock has the fewest number of dental practices offering NHS services per head in Essex, according to new analysis.<\/p>\n

There are about 10 practices for every 100,000 people in the district, which is one of the lowest figures for any local authority in England.<\/p>\n

The Local Government Association examined the latest data from NHS England. <\/p>\n

“For millions, NHS dentistry has effectively ceased to exist, especially among those who need care the most,” said British Dental Association chairman Eddie Crouch.<\/p>\n

“The government can save this service, but that will require real ambition underpinned by sustainable funding.”<\/p>\n

The mean number of active dental practices offering NHS services per 100,000 in people in England is 16.<\/p>\n

The London Borough of Barking and Dagenham has the fewest practices per 100,000 people – at 9.9.<\/p>\n

Tony Clough, clinical director of Sharrow Dental Care in Chelmsford, said the problem was simply down to funding.<\/p>\n

“There has been no increase in real-term funding since 2006, we aren’t magicians,” he said. <\/p>\n

“There are patients whom it may cost us \u00a3150 to treat but we only get \u00a315 for it on the NHS – where is the financial incentive in that”?<\/p>\n

“The government’s proposal to reform the system is welcome but it’s tinkering around the ages and doesn’t look at the whole pathway of dental disease.”<\/p>\n

In March 2024, the previous Conservative government said dentists could be paid either \u00a315 or \u00a350 for new NHS patients – depending on the complexity of the treatment.<\/p>\n

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said it had begun a rollout of 700,000 extra urgent dental appointments and a “golden hello” scheme of recruiting more dentists<\/a> in areas of most need.<\/p>\n

“This government inherited a broken NHS dental system but we are getting on with fixing it,” they said.<\/p>\n

They also said they were reforming the NHS dental contract – with a shift to focus on prevention and retention of NHS dentists – and were rolling out supervised tooth brushing<\/a> for three to five-year-olds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alexander StevanovicBBC News, Essex PA Media There are about 10 NHS dentist practices for every 100,000 people in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":113411,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[102,2960,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-113410","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-healthcare","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113410"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113410\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}