The Ipswich postcode area is the worst in the whole country for finding a dentist

Using new NHS data, a new study has revealed the areas in England where you’re going to be struggling the most to find a dentist.

The study by GoSmokeFree analysed the NHS Find a Dentist service, mapping out all dentists currently accepting children (17 and under), adults (18 and over), and those currently accepting new NHS patients and then creating an index score for each area to determine which postcode areas struggle the most to see a dentist.

Shockingly, Ipswich managed to score 0 out of 100, with just one dentist surgery in the whole postcode area accepting only children – with none accepting adults or NHS patients. This means that there are only 0.16 dentist surgeries for every 100,000 people throughout the whole Ipswich postcode, the lowest throughout the whole country, and almost half that of the next-lowest area, Lincoln, with 0.31 dentists accepting new children per 100,000 people.

In second place is Lincoln, with a score of 0.5 out of 100. Similar to Ipswich, the whole postcode area of Lincoln only had a single surgery that was accepting new children under the age of 17, with no dentists accepting new adults over the age of 18, or NHS patients. The slightly smaller population size of 318,262 throughout the Lincoln postcode resulted in a slightly higher rate of 0.31 surgeries per 100,000 people accepting children, resulting in a higher index score.

Sunderland takes the third spot on the list, scoring 0.8 out of 100. Similar to the previous two entries on the list, Sunderland only has a single dentist surgery accepting new children under the age of 17, with zero dentists currently accepting adults over 18 or new NHS patients. The small size of Sunderland’s population resulted in just 0.41 dentists accepting children under the age of 17 per 100,000 people

Across the whole of England, there were found to be just 26 dentists accepting children per 100,000 people, 19 dentists accepting adults per 100,000 people, and just 0.86 dentists accepting new NHS patients per 100,000 people.

A spokesperson for GoSmokeFree commented on the findings, saying:

“In terms of the rankings, there were shockingly no dentists accepting new adults over the age of 18 or new NHS patients. York, in 19^th place, only has one accepting new adults over 18 and one accepting new NHS patients, along with just four dentists accepting new children under the age of 18. As a result, it was seen that over 8.7 million people lived in areas without dentists that were taking on new NHS patients – meaning that roughly one in 12 people in England didn’t have a dentist accepting new NHS patients in their postcode area.

“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.”

Credit and link to: https://www.gosmokefree.co.uk/