New Sunderland MP presses Health Secretary on Wearside NHS dental service

Lewis Atkinson was elected to fill the Sunderland Central seat left vacant by the retirement of Julie Elliott in the General Election held on July 4.

Although he is yet to make his maiden speech in the Commons chamber, he has quizzed new Health Secretary Wes Streeting on the state of NHS dentistry on Wearside.

Mr Atkinson raided the issue this week during Health and Social Care questions, asking what steps the government were taking to ensure urgent dental services were more accessible in Sunderland and pointed out that both routine and urgent dental care had become inaccessible to his constituents.

The Health Secretary responded that the government was reforming the dental contract, which will shift the focus onto prevention and the retention of NHS dentists.

He also promised that the Labour would provide 700,000 additional urgent appointments.

Mr Streeting also stressed that the Government was working with the British Dental Association to get these appointments out to people as quickly as possible.

Lewis Atkinson wrote to Samantha Allen, the chief executive of the North East & North Cumbria Integrated Care Board in his first week in office, asking for a meeting to discuss the urgent issue of access to dental care in the city.

The problems people were facing in finding a dentist had been a constant subject during canvassing in the run-up to the election, he said: “After 14 years of Tory chaos and neglect, dentistry in Sunderland is clearly broken and I am committed to changing that.

“Dentistry was the number one issue raised with me on the doorstep and so I am pushing the local NHS to make this a key priority moving forward.”