BDA evidence sees Jeremy Hunt promise urgent return to inquiry into dentistry

This follows oral evidence from the British Dental Association in which BDA Chair Mick Armstrong told the committee the effects of the pandemic on oral health have been 'catastrophic'.

'Dentistry was not in a great place when we started. We’ve got access problems which have been raised in both Houses, and also in the previous Health Select Committee, with widening inequalities, rock-bottom morale and retention problems, so the pandemic has just made that that much worse,” he said.

'The effects on general practice, NHS and private, has been devastating and is probably existential. The effect on oral health has been catastrophic.'

Armstrong outlined how inadequate government support, and a combination of higher costs and lower patient numbers has fatally undermined the very model on which the service operates.

He told the Committee that for aerosol-generating procedures – where droplets could be transmitted from the patient – personal protective equipment similar to that worn by critical care health workers was currently required.

He told MPs: 'It is hugely expensive. We are a business, we have to buy it pre-COVID, you could protect patients for £2, £3, it’s now over £40 per patient.'

The BDA Chair, who works as a frontline clinician in West Yorkshire, stressed that access problems that were common in his region, were likely to become the norm across the country: 'We’ve cancelled eight million courses of treatment nationally,' he added.