According to the latest annual survey of patients, just 21 per cent of British adults are satisfied with the current running of the NHS. This means that patient satisfaction with the NHS is down from 24% last year and 70% in 2010, and includes A&E, GP services, and dental care.
As reported in The Guardian, satisfaction with NHS dentistry has collapsed. It has dropped from 60 per cent as recently as 2019 , the year before the COVID pandemic began, to just 20 per cent last year. More people (55 per cent) are dissatisfied with dental care than with any other service.
Mark Dayan, a policy analyst at the Nuffield Trust thinktank, said that, since 2019, there has been “a startling collapse in NHS satisfaction.”
“The latest results lay bare the extent of the problems faced by the NHS and the size of the challenge for the government”, said Dan Wellings, a senior fellow at the King’s Fund. “For too many people, the NHS has become too difficult to access. How can you be satisfied with a service you can’t get into?”
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Regarding NHS dental services the Minister of State for Care, Stephen Kinnok MP, delivered a comprehensive session at the recent BDIA Dental Showcase. During this discussion, he outlined the government’s aims to improve NHS dentistry and highlighted the urgent need for reform, commenting that the current state of NHS dentistry is “Dickensian”.
He stated that the government’s 10-year long-term health workforce plan will be revealed this summer, stating his dedicated support for dentistry and his drive to secure the best possible funding for the profession.
Kinnok finished his session with a Q&A in which he discussed the need to move from hospital to community, cure to prevention, and analogue to digital.
>Since you’re here, why not read about the dental profession’s reaction to the 2025 spring statement?
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