DORCHESTER has been ranked among the worst in the country for seeing an NHS dentist.

The county has been facing a dental crisis in recent months, with no practices in the area offering dental treatment.

Now, using new NHS data, a study by GoSmokeFree, analysing the NHS Find a Dentist service, have created an index score for each area, thereby determining which postcode areas struggle the most.

The research mapped out all dentists accepting children under the age of 17, adults, and those accepting new NHS patients.

Dorchester is ranked fourth worst on the list. The county town scored a 0.94 out of 100 with just a single dentist accepting children under the age of 17 for the DT1 postcode area, covering a population of 221,019 people.

Ipswich topped the list with a score of 0 out of 100, and Lincoln ranked second with a 0.5 out of 100 score.

The county town had a worse score than cities such as Norwich, Bristol and Bath which also made up the top 10. 

The NHS have unveiled plans to improve services across Dorset after 59 per cent of the population were found to go without an appointment in the past two years.

This meant that some would need to undertake a 40-mile round trip to visit an NHS dentist by referral.

New plans were revealed last month by the NHS following a crisis across the country where practices were not in a position of offering NHS appointments.

This included plans for £200m of funding from the government, the creation of up to 2.5m more appointments nationally and 1.5m more NHS dentistry treatment.

Now, NHS Dorset have laid out plans which aim to give better access to dental services to make it easier and faster to receive care.

A spokesperson for NHS Dorset, said: “Services throughout the county have been under pressure for some time despite teams working hard to meet the rising demand, and whilst we have seen some improvements in access, more needs to be done to ensure that everyone who needs to see a dentist can do so.”

Dorset’s NHS are planning improved dental access in underserved areas, including improving the access to urgent and stabilisation programmes.

From March, Dorset’s NHS are looking to improve access for people who have not been to a dentist in two or more years.

They are also looking to encourage dentists to work in areas that have historically difficult to recruit for.

Dorset was also named among of a handful of areas in England who will be part of a national programme to introduce a dental bus.

The NHS in Dorset are also looking to increase the minimum unit of dental activity (UDA) value from the £23 to £28 from April 2024. The purpose of the UDA is to measure a practice's activity and to ensure that the correct amount of patients' charges are collected.

The top ten worst spots areas by postcode to gain access to the dentist:

  1. Ipswich
  2. Lincoln
  3. Sunderland
  4. Dorchester
  5. Norwich
  6. Bristol
  7. Gloucester
  8. Truro
  9. Bath
  10. Plymouth

A spokesperson for GoSmokeFree said: "The results of the study show that these issues not only affect rural areas, but also have crept into more metropolitan areas too, raising questions about the true extent of dentistry's black holes throughout the country.”

To find an NHS dentist near you, visit www.nhs.uk/service-search/find-a-dentist