Sheffield dentist practice ‘can’t afford’ to keep 4,000 patients

A dental practice has said it cannot afford to treat all of its NHS patients unless it secures extra funding.

Since 2022, Darnall Dental Clinic has taken on an additional 4,000 people, but after losing an NHS subsidy, is now unable to offer the same level of service.

Staff said they have suffered verbal abuse from patients who can no longer get an appointment.

Dr Vasileios Orliaklis, from the surgery in Sheffield which now has 13,500 people enrolled, said: “Our practice, which has already invested £466,000 into expanding the premises, is now facing an extra loss of £544,000 in funding. It’s truly maddening.”

The South Yorkshire Integrated Care Board provided extra funding for Darnall Dental Clinic in 2023 and 2024 to take on new NHS patients.

Dr Orliaklis said: “It was claw-back money from practices that couldn’t deliver the core contract.”

Dentists are given a set number of what are know as Units of Dental Activity (UDA) that they will complete and receive NHS funding based on that contract.

The Local Dental Committees Confederation said a check-up would cost one UDA while a filling would account for three.

If not all of the UDAs are fulfilled, the relevant funding is returned and can be re-allocated, as had previously happened with the extra money for Dr Orliaklis’s practice.

However, the money available for reallocation above the basic contract differs from year to year.

Many of the 4,000 new patients required complex emergency dental work, the dentist said.

“These are high dental needs patients, they’ve not been to a dentist for 15 or 20 years.”

One of the new patients was Jason Taylor, 45, who had already had his teeth removed in hospital and is booked to have new dentures fitted at Darnall.

“I was embarrassed to leave the house. It took me a long time to find a dentist, and when I got here there was a queue round the block.”

Dr Orliaklis admitted there would be “difficult conversations” ahead with newer patients.

“I’m trying to do something better for the people living in the local area.

“I don’t know whether we can afford to see those patients or make a decision to cut the list.

“We have to think about the wellbeing of the staff too.”

Practice manager Sarah Fletcher said managing patients’ expectations was a key part of her job.

“We have patients that aren’t happy about the wait, they might be waiting for six weeks for the next filling but we explain that for the NHS that’s good going, some practices you’ll need to wait months.

“We’re doing the best we can but they don’t understand the pressure we’re under – and I get it, they vent it in anger, they want to get their teeth fixing, they don’t want a hole in their mouth.”

Dental nurse and receptionist Olivia Tanner has worked at the surgery for four years and faces the brunt of patients’ frustration.

“It is every day that we get abuse. There’s swearing, shouting, I’ve been spat at. It does feel degrading, especially when this is an industry that you come into to help people.”

The area that the surgery sits in is classed as having high dental needs.

A recent Public Accounts Committee report on NHS dentistry found that only around half of the English population could see an NHS dentist over a two-year period under current funding and contractual arrangements.

Just 40% of adults saw an NHS dentist in the two years up to March 2024, compared to 49% in the two years pre-pandemic.

Sheffield South East MP Clive Betts said: “The PAC report shows at a national level how UK dentistry is in serious distress. It is absolutely outrageous that this dental practice, when stepping up to offer dental appointments under the NHS, is now having its funding cut.”

An NHS South Yorkshire spokesperson said: “We are committed to reducing health inequalities and supporting dental practices to provide the best possible access and services within our funding allocation.”

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “We inherited NHS dentistry services left broken by years of neglect. Through our Plan for Change, we are working to rebuild the sector and expand access.”