This is according to the BDA which has been campaigning against this rigid, target-driven contract from day one of its introduction in 2006. Dentists are commissioned by NHS England to deliver a set number of units of dental activity (UDAs) every year, and this number of units is all that the NHS is willing to fund.
Many dentists want to take on new NHS patients, the BDA explains, but practices are forced to turn them away when their allocated or capped dental budget for the year runs out. Another limitation is that the dental budget is based on the population's needs eight years ago (2006) which means that dental provision in some parts of the country does not reflect current needs.
The contract also removed people's ability to register with an NHS dentist which ensured that people knew they were entitled to NHS care, so patients cannot be 'deregistered' as the Healthwatch survey asserts. Once a patient finishes a course of treatment the next time they see the dentist, under the 2006 contract, they are regarded as a 'new' patient. Most practices continue to care for their list of patients, but the BDA points out that because NHS funding for every practice is fixed, this means that individual practices have limited scope to take on new patients, if at all.
The BDA has spent long years lobbying governments of all political hues to reform the dental contract: we want a system that favours patient-centred, preventive care over tick-box targets, and provides a fair reward for dentists. This campaigning resulted in an agreement in 2011 to launch pilots to test new ways of delivering NHS dental care.
The chair of the BDA's General Dental Practice Committee, John Milne, said:
"The Healthwatch survey is not a particularly representative sample of the population, given the small numbers involved and the fact that its findings are so out of step with the latest NHS patient survey of more than a quarter of a million patients. This showed that up to 95 per cent of patients were successful in getting a dental appointment.
"However, the survey does provide an insight into just how badly patients can be let down by an inflexible dental contract. It's unacceptable that patients who cannot access NHS care when they need it are then faced with having to be treated privately or not be treated at all.
"It's also frustrating for dentists who want to see more NHS patients but effectively have their hands tied when their allocation of NHS funding runs out. It's time the government makes clear what the NHS does, and does not provide for patients, and explains simply what the cost is to them.
"We hope the new system that emerges from the pilots will provide patients with access to routine and urgent care when they need it, and improve people's oral health wherever they live.
"The government needs to accelerate the pace of change to ensure patients are not missing out on the care they need now. It must invest more in dentistry to ensure access improves, not deteriorates."