In Bath and North East Somerset, 14,159 children have not been seen by an NHS dentist in the past year, according to House of Commons Library research commissioned by the Liberal Democrats and the Office of Wera Hobhouse.

Wera Hobhouse, MP for Bath, has called for an end to ‘dental deserts’. She said that these figures are a damning indictment of the Conservative Party’s legacy of running local health services into the ground.

The research is based on data from the health service from March 2023 to March 2024.

It also revealed the proportion of children not seen by an NHS dentist in Bath and North East Somerset. For 2023, almost 40 per cent of children had not been seen by an NHS dentist.

This is despite the NHS recommendation that under-18s should see a dentist at least once a year because their teeth can decay faster than adults. Tooth decay is also the leading cause of hospital admissions for children aged six to 10.

The Liberal Democrats have called for an emergency rescue plan for NHS dentistry. This includes spending any funding that has gone unspent in recent years to boost the number of appointments, as well as the removal of VAT on children’s toothbrushes and toothpaste.

Wera said, “We have been struggling with a ‘dental desert’ in Bath for far too long now. Barriers to accessing an NHS dentist mean that many families are forced to choose between going private or risking their children’s dental health.

“Children deserve to have the best possible start in life – and having good dental health lays the very foundation for this.

“We urgently need the government to commit to investing in local health services at the Budget and bringing an end to ‘dental deserts’ so that every child in Bath can see a dentist when they need to.”

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