Oral cancer surging in UK amid NHS dental crisis as Brits no longer get checkups
Deadly mouth infections are on the rise as around half the population is no longer getting regular dental check-ups.
Mouth infections allowed to develop into deadly sepsis - previously unheard of - are being reported by medics in areas where access to an NHS dentist is most restricted. One doctor described his hospital as “like a battlefield” given the volume of dental sepsis cases and emergency dental problems.
Dentists warn people are being doled out antibiotics - which do not cure toothache - just to lower the risk of deadly infections but adding to antibiotic resistance. It comes after data last year showed a surge in oral cancers linked to a lack of dental check-ups.
A dentist in the north of England, who asked to remain anonymous, said: “We’re now seeing patients dying from toothache. We’ve never witnessed this before, and there have been multiple cases. One patient came into A&E, was intubated immediately, but died of dental infection without ever regaining consciousness.
"Ultimately these are the result of access problems in primary care. It’s clear to me these infections will claim more lives. The powers that be should never have allowed dentistry to get into this state.”
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Data released last year showed 9,860 cases of mouth cancer in the UK in 2020/21 - up 12% on the previous comparable year. The disease killed more than 3,000 people in 2021 which was up 46%, from 2,075 a decade ago. Dentists often flag up these cancers and early detection results in a 90% survival rate. This drops to a 50% survival rate after a delayed diagnosis.
Eddie Crouch, chair of the British Dental Association, said: “This crisis is hitting every corner of our health service. It’s the patients piling into emergency rooms and GP surgeries. It’s the oral cancers caught too late, and the simple problems that end up as life threatening infections. Official indifference to NHS dentistry has a body count. What more will it take for this Government to wake up?”
Oral cancers claim more lives in the UK than car accidents and the BDA says ongoing NHS access problems are making the difference between life and death for some patients. Data on oral sepsis is hard to tease out because the NHS codes cases based on the type of bacteria rather than the location.
Paul Woodhouse, a dentist in Stockton-on-Tees, said: “I’ve been doing this for 23 years and I’ve never seen anything like this. Patients are delaying seeing us – for some it’s cost of living pressures, for many others it’s simply because our diary is rammed.”
It comes a day after the Mirror (which has launched a campaign to get dental access for all) reported new data, released under Freedom of Information laws, which confirmed more than 100,000 children have had to be admitted to hospital for tooth decay in the last five years.
The Lib Dems last year obtained data from the House of Commons Library showing 4.4 million children had not seen an NHS dentist in the previous 12 months, as is recommended. That equates to nearly 40% of children. Some 22 million adults, 52% of the population, had not seen an NHS dentist in the past two years.
The BDA blames a flawed NHS dental contract which effectively sets a cap on the number of patients a practice can see based on arbitrary targets rather than population need. Real terms government funding for NHS dentistry has been slashed in the last decade and numbers of dentists have dropped at the same time as patient demand has increased.
A spokesman for NHS England said: “The NHS is working hard to tackle the inevitable backlogs that built up during the pandemic with dental activity up by more than a fifth last year compared to the year before, while the health service has implemented the first reforms to dentistry in 16 years. If people have any concerns about their oral health such as ulcers, then they should seek advice from either a dental practice or their GP practice team.”
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