Following the announcement by Bupa that it was closing its dental practice in Bolsover, I had emergency meetings with the Derby and Derbyshire Integrated Care Board, Ministers in the Department for Health and Social Care and Bupa to discuss what needs to be done to restore this provision to the town of Bolsover. After numerous meetings and raising this issue in the House of Commons chamber, I was very pleased that Bolsover will hopefully soon once again have a dental practice.
The Integrated Care Board is working with its partners to get this new practice up and running as fast as possible and I will do all I can to speed this process up wherever possible. Once I have further updates, I will ensure to share this with constituents.
I was seriously disappointed by the way Bupa conducted itself during this process. It failed to consult with residents or local stakeholders, including myself, and was very uncooperative when attempts were made to speed up the process of getting dental provision back into the town. I have made this very clear with the company, on behalf of all residents.
Beyond this practice I continue to work closely with the Government to find ways to improve access to dentistry.
This is a national issue, and I would like to see more measures to improve dentist-to-patient ratios, the streamlining of administrative tasks to free up more time to treat patients and increased numbers of dentists in training.
I have raised these issues previously in the House of Commons and I will continue to advocate for these important steps to be taken.
