We want everyone to have healthier teeth and gums.
We also want people to have less dental decay so they need fewer trips to the dentist.
When people do need to see a dentist, we want it to be easy to find the right NHS dental care.
Our vision is to improve oral health by:
We will do this in 4 ways:
We will help people to keep their teeth and gums healthy from an early age. We will do this by:
• helping the people and places most in need.
• asking other services, like councils, health visitors and social carers, to help people look after their teeth and gums.
• supporting a project to add fluoride to the water supply in the North East.
• giving dentists the things they need to stop dental decay, like a fluoride varnish to make teeth stronger.
2. Provide more urgent care appointments
We will help people who need urgent or emergency dental care by:
• opening Urgent Dental Access Centres across the region. They will provide an extra 109,000 urgent care appointments a year.
• letting patients book their own appointments online.
• securing more than 1,000 extra out-of-hours urgent dental sessions for 2025-26 in the North East
• adding more staff to help NHS 111 deal with dental calls.
3. Make it easier to get a routine appointment
We will help people to see a dentist for routine care, like check-ups, by:
• working with dentists to make sure they have enough staff and appointments for local people.
• helping patients to get specialist dental care when they need it.
• supporting community dental teams to care for children, young people and vulnerable groups.
We will get and keep more dental staff by:
• offering training and support to all dental staff.
• rewarding dentists for working in the NHS for a long time.
• hiring new staff to work in places with the most needs.
• designing services that work for patients and dentists.
• giving our region's views on national changes to how the NHS contract works to support teams to deliver NHS services in our communities.
