People trying to get their teeth fixed face face a 'new normal' of longer waiting times and a struggle to get appointments, according to one Trafford health boss.
Head of primary care for Greater Manchester Ben Squires said delivery of dental services has changed because the Covid crisis "continues to be a challenge in the community". He described the post-pandemic dilemma for the dental services in the borough and across the UK as "the new normal".
He was speaking to Trafford council's health scrutiny committee while delivering a report on the provision and access to NHS dentistry in the borough. Chair of the committee Coun Michael Whetton admitted that the revelations in the report had left him "a bit shellshocked because of some of the situations we are in".
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Coun David Acton had asked Mr Squires: "The simple question is, and I don't think it's answered in the papers we've got is, when and how are we going to get back to normal?
"Because these are the basic issues that people I speak to around getting appointments like they used to be able to get from their dentists, and that doesn't seem to be happening."
Mr Squires responded by saying: "I couldn't give you a direct answer because I don't know. We are in a new normal because the delivery of dental services has changed. The workforce continue to use enhanced PPE which is impacting particularly on their time commitments and the throughput of patients."
The report said that dental services were significantly impacted by the COVID pandemic because of the risk of cross-infection while operating in and around the mouth.
It said there was a reduction of about 70 per cent across all dental services capacity [during the pandemic] but that now dental services were "working hard on recovery to pre-pandemic levels, reducing backlogs and waiting lists".
In Trafford, there are 36 NHS dental practitioners - 10 per cent of the total in the borough. Of 42 urgent dental care centres in Greater Manchester, two are in Trafford.
Patients calling the GM Urgent Dental Care Service can attend their most convenient urgent dental care provider and are not restricted by local authority boundaries in Greater Manchester.
"All NHS general dental practices continue to prioritise patients in pain, children, patients who are deemed as high risk – such as those receiving treatment for cancer, and those who are mid-way through a course of treatment," the report said. "Access is still steadily increasing but has not yet returned to pre-pandemic levels."
Between April 2020 and March 2021 access to NHS general dental services in Trafford fell from just above 140,000 to below 130,000 patients. In the same period for 2021 and 2022, the figure fell from just above 120,000 to just above 100,000 and only started rising again in February to about 1110,000 by March.
Vijay Aggarwal, of the Trafford Local Dental Committee, said: "The dental situation has changed from what it was pre-Covid because we've got workforce issues." He said that because of the pandemic and partly due to Brexit, European dentists, dental nurses, hygienists and therapists can't register with the Government and the General Dental Council (GDC) as easily as they did before.
"The GDC is also taking time to up its services, to put them through exams and process their registrations," he said. "I'm not sure of the percentages, but they are nowhere near what they were pre-Covid."
Mr Aggarwal also said that dental practices operate as independent businesses. "We are susceptible to the environment, like the cost of living, gas and electricity and things like that going up," he said. "Unfortunately, NHS England isn't. Because of that it's hard to recruit NHS dentists and nurses.
"Any new dentist or anyone looking for work is looking for private only. So a lot of dentists are leaving the NHS, which is going to make it harder to recover to pre-Covid levels of service. Also, during the pandemic, a lot of dental nurses, hygienists and therapists left the profession and have taken jobs elsewhere."
Meanwhile, plans to consolidate three specialist community dental clinics in Tafford into one three-surgery clinic in Altrincham Health and Wellbeing Hub is set to go ahead.
The services delivered by Bridgewater Community Health Foundation Trust treat adults and children with additional needs. They are being moved from Partington Health Centre, Conway Road Health Centre in Sale and Seymour Grove Health Centre in Old Trafford.
The venues will be released to support 'wider service developments. Mr Squires' report said the Altrincham Hub 'has benefits of travel links across Trafford'.
"The proposed consolidation would continue to deliver specialist care to patients from across Trafford without any reduction in capacity," it said. "Indeed, the consolidation is anticipated to improve efficiencies and overall service capacity."
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