Member's statement: NHS Dental Care

Member's statement by Ms Cheryl Brownlee on 8 September 2026.

MLA

Ms Cheryl Brownlee

Party at the time

Democratic Unionist Party

Date

8 September 2026

Type

Member's statement

Business

Members' Statements

Heading

NHS Dental Care

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5673785

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Today, I want to talk about something that should concern every single Member in the Chamber: the growing failure to provide very basic NHS dental care. I will start with what is happening in my constituency of East Antrim. This summer, BUPA, an NHS dental provider in Carrickfergus, had to write to more than 2,000 patients to tell them that, because of staffing challenges, it could no longer provide them with NHS dental care. Those 2,000 people did not suddenly stop needing treatment. They are working families, students, older people and people with additional needs who relied on that NHS care to provide them with access to a dentist. The practice has advertised repeatedly for staff but struggled to attract applicants. Now, for many people in Carrickfergus, there is simply no NHS care available. What are those families expected to do? Pay privately? For many, that is not an option. This is where we need to be really honest: access to NHS dentistry is becoming an income issue. If you cannot work, you may be entitled to assistance and NHS access, but, if you are a working family trying to pay your mortgage or your rent, childcare and bills and trying to put food on the table, you can find yourself excluded from NHS dental care. That cannot be right. We cannot tell working families that they are expected to contribute to the system but to pay privately when they need basic services. That is not fair. The consequences of that failure go far beyond a toothache.

Good dental hygiene is a fundamental part of good health, and preventative dental care helps with problems before they become serious infections. It allows people to eat and sleep properly and to live without unnecessary pain. When we cannot access a dentist, problems that could have been dealt with become much more serious. We do not even have the data to properly understand the scale of the problem. We in the Assembly should be able to tell how many people have been admitted to hospital because of serious dental infections, but, in response to a question for written answer that was tabled by my colleague Diane Forsythe, the Department could not answer that. If we cannot properly measure the consequences of poor dentistry, how can we plan appropriate services? We need to recognise the impact on our workforce. We have so many skilled dental nurses and other professionals who are not able to do the job that they want to do. We need to be very serious about it. The system is failing working people. It is failing my constituents of East Antrim. No one should live in pain because they cannot access those basic services. We need long-term reform, but we need action now. We believe in a very simple principle: your ability to see an NHS dentist should not depend on your postcode or on whether you are in work. The people of East Antrim work hard, pay their taxes and do everything that is expected of them. They deserve an NHS dental service that works for them too.

518 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 16:17 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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