Fewer People Seeing NHS Dentist Despite Increase In Dental Activity Says Report From The NHS Information Centre, UK

The number of people who have seen an NHS dentist in the last two years has
fallen to under 27 million, says a report from The NHS Information Centre
today (27 November 2008).


However, data also shows NHS dentists are delivering more treatments.


The report, NHS Dental Statistics for England: Quarter 1, 30 June 2008,
shows 1.2 million fewer people saw an NHS dentist in the two years leading
to June 2008 compared to the number seen in the two years leading up to the
end of the old dental contract in March 2006.


Overall, the report showed in the two years to 30 June 2008 an NHS dentist
was seen by:


- 26.9 million people - 52.7 per cent of the population

- 19.3 million adults - 48.3 per cent of the adult population

- 7.6 million children - 69.0 per cent of the child population


The percentage of people seen by an NHS dentist varied from area to area
with a higher percentage of people tending to see an NHS dentist in northern
SHA areas compared with those in the south of England. The highest
percentage was in North East SHA area, where 60.6 per cent saw an NHS
dentist in the two years to 30 June 2008. The percentage was lowest in South
Central SHA where 44.3 per cent saw an NHS dentist over the same period.


However, while the number of people seen by an NHS dentist fell across all
strategic health authority areas, provisional figures suggest the number of
courses of treatment delivered to patients by NHS dentists increased from
the same quarter last year.


Provisional figures show that in the first three months of 2008/09, NHS
dentists delivered 9.2 million courses of treatment - an increase of 125,100
(1.4 per cent) on the same period of 2007/08. The final figure, including
treatments reported late, will be higher.
NHS Information Centre chief executive Tim Straughan said: "The report gives
an in-depth picture of NHS dental care across England and with its wealth of
regional and local figures it will be of huge interest and value to policy
makers and NHS managers across the country.
"But despite the fall in the number of people being seen by NHS dentists,
the report also highlights an increase in the number of treatments being
delivered to patients who see an NHS dentist."


The full report is at ic.nhs.uk/pubs/dentalstats0809q1


It is accompanied by an easy-to-use electronic factsheet that allows users
to compare the results for any primary care trust against averages for the
parent strategic health authority and for England as a whole.


1. The NHS Information Centre is England's authoritative,
independent source of health and social care information. It works with more
than 300 health and social care providers nationwide to provide the facts
and figures that help the NHS and social services run effectively. Its role
is to collect data, analyse it and convert it into useful information which
helps providers improve their services and supports academics, researchers,
regulators and policymakers in their work.















The NHS Information Centre also produces a wide range of statistical
publications each year across a number of areas including: primary care,
health and lifestyles, screening, hospital care, population and geography,
social care and workforce and pay statistics.



2. The NHS Business Service Authority's Dental Services Division
(DSD) is the source of data for this report. The NHS Information Centre has
responsibility for analysing and publishing these data.


3. The report covers NHS dental work, much of which is
undertaken by 'high street dentists', and does not cover private work
carried out by dentists. It covers activity (excluding orthodontic work)
carried out up to the first quarter of 2008/09.


4. Sub-national information on patients seen was not published
on 21 August 2008 as part of the end of year NHS Dental Statistics for
England 2007/08 report, due to concerns over the allocation of patients to
PCTs across the various quarters. This issue was considered to have only a
minimal impact on national figures which were included but labelled as
provisional until the issue could be investigated.



These concerns have been examined by the NHS Information Centre in liaison
with the Dental Services Division of the NHS Business Services Authority and
have been addressed by the inclusion of additional technical information to
enhance interpretation of the patients seen time series data. As a result,
the sub-national patients seen information for the 24 month period ending 30
June 2008 are included as usual. Furthermore, the sub-national data for the
24 month period ending 31 March 2008, originally omitted from the 2007/08
report, are included in the annexes to this report. Also, the national
patients seen numbers for the 24 month period ending 31 March 2008,
originally labelled as provisional are now final. The corresponding
information presented as a percentage of the population has been revised in
line with the usual processes to use updated Office of National Statistics
population figures.



5. The latest activity information is provisional and will
subsequently be revised upwards to account for Courses of Treatment reported
too late for inclusion in this report. At this stage, activity data for
quarter 1 of 2008/09 is based on provisional data whereas data for earlier
quarters is based on final data. Final figures for 2008/09 are expected to
be published in August 2009.


6. For Quarter 1 in 2007/08 the increase between the provisional
and final figures was 1.7 per cent for CoTs and 1.8 per cent for UDAs. This
suggests that comparisons with the final figures for the first quarter of
2007/08 will produce an underestimate of change.


7. Courses of Treatment fall into one of three main bands (based
on the complexity of the most complex aspect of the treatment). Band 1
covers a check up and simple treatment (such as examination, diagnosis (e.g.
x-rays), advice on preventative measures, and a scale and polish), Band 2
includes further mid range treatments (such as fillings, extractions, and
root canal work) in addition to Band 1 work, and Band 3 includes further
complex treatments (such as crowns, dentures, and bridges) in addition to
Band 1 and Band 2 work. There is also a separate Urgent Band which includes
a specified set of possible treatments provided to a patient in certain
circumstances.



8. The NHS Information Centre recently published 'Bite-size
Dental SHA Flyers'. These contain a summary of key results from recent
dental publications for each strategic health authority, and allow
comparisons to be made with national averages. They are available at
ic.nhs.uk/dentalflyers

NHS Information Centre