MILLIONS of adults haven’t seen a dentist in two years
In spite of warnings from dentists reminding people to book routine checks every year, new figures have revealed that a shocking twenty-one million adults in the UK haven’t seen a dentist in the last two years.
The figures, which were released via NHS Digital, equal roughly about half of all adults in the country. The statistics include all adults that have not seen an NHS dentist within the past two years.
The report continued on to state that not enough parents are taking children for regular appointments. Dental care for children is completely free on the NHS and not enough families are taking advantage of this. More than 40 per cent of children in the country failed to visit the dentist over the past year.
According to the British Dental Association (BDA), the government should be doing more to promote the free dental services offered for children by the NHS, and BDA representatives believe that there is a lot of confusion regarding NHS dental fees, with adults believing they will have to pay vast sums of money. The fact that over 5 million children are missing out on their access to free dental treatment has been called a “national disgrace” by the BDA’s chair of General Practice, Henrik Overgaard-Nielsen, who blames both past and present governments for their failure to prioritise the nation’s dental health. Shockingly, despite its preventability, the single biggest cause for the hospitalisation of young children is tooth decay.
Overgaard-Nielsen’s statements were further backed by a recent poll held by the BDA, which shows that 25 per cent of parents were not aware that dental check-ups are free on the NHS for children.
