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From The Sunday Times
March 2, 2008

Children wait years for vital dental care

Sarah-Kate Templeton, Health Editor

MORE than 10,000 children with severe dental problems including jaw deformities and an inability to bite properly are waiting up to seven years for corrective treatment on the National Health Service.

Orthodontists have warned that in many cases the children suffer from much more serious problems by the time they are finally given treatment.

This weekend specialists claimed that in many parts of England the NHS had in effect ceased to provide corrective surgery for children.

They also warned that the government’s introduction of an 18-week waiting time target for orthodontics at the end of the year would be so difficult to meet that patients would not be referred at all and treatment would be rationed further.

Evidence of the collapse in orthodontics in parts of the country is revealed in research by the British Orthodontic Society. It found that in at least seven hospital catchment areas in England, children with serious conditions were waiting more than four years for hospital treatment.

In one area of the northeast children are waiting for seven years while in another the delay is 5½ years.

James Spencer, consultant orthodontist at Pindersfield hospital in West Yorkshire, said: “This is totally unsatisfactory. If we are not able to get on with the treatment conditions such as impacted teeth may cause damage to other teeth. The children may also suffer psychological damage or sleeping problems.”

Once children reach 18 they are no longer routinely entitled to NHS treatment. Orthodontists report that some children turn 18 while waiting to be assessed for care and thus lose their chance of surgery on the NHS.

A Department of Health spokeswoman said: “The department is aware of the variations in provision of orthodontic treatment and has given help to primary care trusts in assessing and reviewing future orthodontic services.”

i am in the middle of complaining to my PCT. My daughter has been on the waiting list for orthodontic treatment for 2 and a half years and i have been told last week that she is unlikely to be seen this year. I am furious, we were initially told that 'it could be up to 2 years' in all that time i have kept ringing and pushing for her to be seen. I was informed in September that there could be a delay - talk about an understatement!!

Annette Marchment, Morecambe, UK

This is another disgusting legacy of this Labour Government and the PCT's that are meant to be in charge seem equally useless. Here in SURREY the best that the Surrey PCT could suggest was that we went to Boots and got a temporary filling (for an abcess !!).
Surrey PCT have been promising changes for years and each time I talk to them they come up with the old pony excuse blaming it on the new contracts. The fact is that once you have allowed someone (dentists) to see that they can earn say £200 a treatment it is impossible to then bring them back to earning say £50 with the NHS. Look at GP's this Labour Govt gave them a large pay rise BEFORE they got the GP's to agree to longer working hours and now they cannot get them to do longer hours. How stupid a government is that .

John, Woking, Surrey

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