The British Dental Association (BDA) has said Liz Truss's new administration must urgently move on pledges to reform NHS dentistry, as analysis of official data reveals close to a million new mums have missed out on free dental care due to the pandemic.
Patients are entitled to free NHS dental care if they are pregnant when they start treatment, and for 12 months after the baby is born. But uptake for both groups has crashed during the pandemic.
In the five years prior to the pandemic, an average of over 840,000 maternity claims were made per year. This crashed to 245,967 in 2020/21 and to 490,298 in 2021/22. Leaving an estimated 944,039 maternity appointments lost since lockdown.
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