NHS dentistry needs urgent and fundamental reform to end a “crisis of access,” the health select committee has said.

Committee chairman Steve Brine MP said “rarely has an inquiry been more necessary than this one” as it branded the pain and distress due to being unable to see an NHS dentist “totally unacceptable in the 21st century.”

MPs concluded the current Units of Dental Activity (UDA) contract system, the basis for dentists’ renumeration, acts as a disincentive to dentists seeing new patients for non-routine treatments. 

They said it needed urgent reform to boost recruitment and retention in NHS dental services.

They warned the NHS dentistry budget is forecast to “underspend” by £400 million in 2022/23 amid plummeting levels of non-private work taken on by dentists.

Mr Brine said: “The problem is compounded by people being unaware of what they’re entitled to and a contract that is unfit for purpose when it comes to paying dentists for treating NHS patients. 

“Today we register in the strongest terms possible our concern for the future of NHS dental services and the patients who desperately need access to them.

“What’s particularly frustrating is that recommendations made by our predecessor committee 15 years ago to reform the dental contract have still not been implemented.

“Yet contract reform alone is unlikely to bring back dentists who have already left the NHS or are considering leaving in the near future.

“Declining levels of NHS dentistry activity should have been sounding alarm bells, as should a projected budget underspend of £400 million.

“We endorse the government’s ambition to ensure that everyone who needs an NHS dentist can access one. Belatedly, now is the time to deliver it.”

The committee urged the government to ensure everyone who needs an NHS dentist is able to access one “within a reasonable timeframe and a reasonable distance.”

Ministers were also urged to implement a “fundamentally reformed dental contract” to move away from current UDA system and commission a dental workforce survey.

The British Dental Association (BDA) urged politicians to follow the committee’s recommendations or “condemn this service to oblivion.”

Shawn Charlwood, chair of the BDA’s general dental practice committee, said: “From reform to funding the committee has provided an instruction manual to save NHS dentistry.

“Failure to act will condemn this service to oblivion.”

Mark Jones, of grassroots campaign group Toothless in England, told the Morning Star: “The report's findings show how far oral healthcare provision has fallen. The recommendations are largely welcomed.

“However, the Westminster government has the option to disregard and persist in burying its head in the sand, just like all of its predecessors since the committee issued comparable recommendations 15 years ago.

“There is no time soon enough to put these suggestions into practice. Universal access to an NHS dentist must be restored, and quickly too.”