Labour has pledged to create an additional 100,000 dental appointments for children in England in a bid to tackle backlogs in the service. The new appointments will be for urgent and emergency cases during evenings and weekends according to Labour’s proposed strategy if they win the general election. It has become increasingly difficult for children to access NHS dentists in many regions, with tooth decay being the most common reason for hospital admissions in children aged between five and nine years.
Announced on 2 November, Labour’s plans also include supervised brushing for children, doubling the number of NHS scanners, and reform of dentists’ contracts to increase numbers where there is a need. Funding for the £109m pledge will be generated by tightening non-dom tax regulations and cracking down on tax avoidance. In 2023, data revealed that thousands of children were routinely hospitalised for tooth decay treatment with nearly 48,000 tooth extractions being performed in NHS hospitals in England for patients up to nine years old. While two-thirds of these extractions were due to tooth decay, the cost of childhood tooth extractions to NHS hospitals amounted to £64.3m last year with decay-related extractions making up £40.7m of this.
Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer, and shadow health secretary, Wes Streeting, will reveal the “Child Health Action Plan” on their campaign tour in the North East of England on 2 November. Streeting has reiterated that the plans would help “put a smile back on kids’ faces”. He said that Labour’s proposals would aid in tackling the “crisis in NHS dentistry under the Conservatives”, with 540,000 fewer children having visited a dentist last year, compared to 2018.
Labour’s proposed action plan comes as the Conservative Party claims that its own “dental recovery plan” has already seen 500 new practices opening their doors to NHS patients, on top of creating an extra 2.5 million NHS appointments in 2024. The Liberal Democrat Party intends to introduce free emergency checkups for children, young mothers, pregnant women, and those on low incomes. Meanwhile, the Green Party plans to invest £50bn in health and social care and introduce NHS dentistry to everyone with the funding being raised from increasing tax rates for the wealthy. At the time of writing, the Reform Party has not yet released its manifesto
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