Has spending on NHS dentists fallen?
- Published
Watch: Health secretary asked if dental budget lower than it was
The government has been defending its record on NHS dentistry following the launch of its dental recovery plan.
Pictures of people queuing around the block to register as NHS patients at a dentists in Bristol have highlighted the problem of access to dental treatment.
We've looked at some of the claims made.
Has health spending fallen?
Health Secretary Victoria Atkins spoke to BBC Breakfast about her new dentistry plan.
Presenter Sally Nugent asked her: "Am I right in thinking that actually the budget for NHS dentistry has dropped by £500m since 2014?"
The secretary of state did not answer the question.
The amount spent on NHS dentistry in England, external last year was about £150m more than in 2014, but because of rising prices the money would have been worth more 10 years ago.
If you adjust for those rising prices, spending on NHS dentistry has indeed fallen by about £500m since then.
And it is important to remember that the population in England has risen by about 5% over this period.
If you look back a bit further to 2011, government spending on NHS dentistry has fallen by nearly a quarter and the population has risen by about 7% since then.
Victoria Atkins also said: "We are spending £3bn on dentistry."
That "we" includes money paid by some patients for NHS services. In 2022-23, dental fees and charges in England were worth about £750m.
Have more people been seen by NHS dentists in the last year?
Defending the government's record on NHS dentists, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said: "over a million more people saw an NHS dentist last year than the year before but we know there is more to do".
The NHS releases dental statistics for England every year.
The latest figures published last year, external show that 18.1 million adults were seen by an NHS dentist in the two years to June 2023 - an increase of more than one million compared with the 16.4 million adults seen in the two years to June 2022.
The figures are collated over a two-year period rather than a single year.
So when the Prime Minister says "last year" we have taken this to mean the last year for which we have figures (June 2023), compared to the figures released the year before (June 2022).
Although the PM is right about the recent increase, the number of adults being seen by NHS dentists is still below pre-pandemic levels. In the two years to June 2019, 22 million adults were seen.
This is roughly the same number of adults seen when the Conservative coalition government came to power in 2010.
During the pandemic there were restrictions on dental services because of the risk of infection.
Is tooth decay the main reason for child hospital admissions?
Shadow health secretary Wes Streeting said in the Commons: "Tooth decay is the number one reason for children aged six to 10 being admitted to hospital."
This is right according to official government statistics, external for the 12 months to the end of March 2022 which say: "Tooth decay was still the most common reason for hospital admission in children aged between 6 and 10 years".
We could not find the official data that this is based on.
But we did find the figures, external for a slightly different age group - five to nine-year-olds - for the 12 months to March 2023.
Tooth decay was the number one reason for hospital admissions for this age group as well - 19,560 of them were admitted for this.
