How Covid Has Impacted Dental Services & Cancer Patients

We all know how Covid has affected our lives but if you're suffering with any type of cancer, the stress of shielding, having treatments cancelled, postponed or even just getting an initial diagnosis will have caused a great deal of anxiety and stress.  On top of that, many many many people will have had their finances affected - some were on furlough (which starts reducing today), but worse still, some have had no income.

Some cancer treatments (such as chemotherapy, radiotherapy and bisphosphonates) require a healthy mouth so a trip to the dentist is not only necessary but it's usually urgent and of the utmost importance.  During the height of the pandemic cancer patients had to shield so a trip to the dentist was impossible.

Not only that, did you know that dental practices had to temporarily close during the first few months of the pandemic because they had to work out how to operate safely for the patient and themselves?  All dental work was suspended in March 2020 and didn't reopen until June 2020 - that's a 3 month delay and even on re-opening, it was tentative to ensure that all safety precautions were taken.

Prior to the pandemic, an NHS dentist (on average), would see around 30 patients a day.  It is now around 15-20 patients per day because of the cleaning and sterlisation to keep everybody safe which can take up to 30 minutes per patient.

Were cancer patients prioritised?  Yes but only by some dental practices.  This means that there is now a bigger backlog of cancer patients needing urgent NHS treatment.  Don't forget, some of those patients don't have access to NHS dental treatment either and I've heard of some horrific stories recently where people have had to pay over £3,000 for private dental care just so they can have their cancer treatment.

THIS HAS TO STOP!  When you have cancer, lots of patients have financial difficulties.  Please please please help me to get this changed.  We need FREE DENTAL CARE FOR CANCER PATIENTS. 

One other thing that I may add to this campaign is as follows:

It is alarming but apparently lots of dental nurses are leaving practices (due to having to wear the cumbersome PPE and safety concerns) but many more dental practices are stopping offering NHS dental work and are moving to private dental only.  This is because the pandemic has hit their pockets and whilst it's understandable, the strain on patients and people getting reduced cost dental work is only going to get worse.

So, I have been thinking about whether, as part of a licence to practice, if there should be legislation that means every dentist must carry out a minimum of 10% of their work for NHS patients.  Whilst this probably doesn't solve the issue, it would mean that there might be a better pool of NHS work carried out. This may seem extreme but think about house builders - they have to provide a certain amount of affordable housing so why shouldn't health be the same?  Please let me know what you think in the comments.

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