UK hospitals' dental admissions rise

A long-standing shortage of National Health Service (NHS) dentists is being linked to a spike in the number of patients admitted to British hospitals with dental abscesses.

Recent figures show there has been a doubling in the number of hospital admissions for abscesses in the last eight years, to almost 1,500 a year.

Bristol University researchers said the increase represented a "major public health problem" and seemed to be caused by changes to contracts for government dentists.

Writing in the British Medical Journal, the team revealed there were 750 admissions in 1998-9, but by 2005-6 that had risen to 1,431. Hospital bed days by patients affected doubled to nearly 4,000.

The team dismissed claims that poorer oral care was to blame, noting that the average age of the patients, at 32 years old, was too young to support that theory.

Instead, the team suggested that changes to the nation's dental service, aggravated by the introduction of a new contract in 2006 for public sector dentists, might be to blame.

"Most serious dental infections are preventable with regular dental care. Indeed, this is the rationale for regular dental check-ups," said lead researcher Steven Thomas. "Changes in service provision could, therefore, have resulted in reduced provision of routine dental care and access to emergency dental care."

"These changes might explain the rise in surgical admissions for dental abscess."

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