(Bloomberg) -- Dentistry in the UK needs urgent reform following cases of people using pliers to pull out their own teeth, a parliamentary report has said.

The Health and Social Care Committee, a group of British Members of Parliament, described the pain and distress caused to patients through a lack of access to dentistry as “totally unacceptable in the 21st century.”

The National Health Service is supposed to provide dentistry but the committee said 90% of practices were not accepting new adult patients, citing research from last year by the BBC and the British Dental Association. 

The inquiry was launched in December following media reports of people performing their own dentistry. One in 10 Britons said they had attempted their own dental work, according to a YouGov poll conducted in March.

Steve Brine, chair of the committee, said the situation demonstrates the crisis in NHS dental services.

Toothless

Cost-of-living pressures have made it more difficult for patients to find oral health care. The YouGov survey said that 1 in 5 people are currently not registered with a dentist, of which 23% cited their inability to afford treatment.

In May 2022, a BDA survey of dentists found that 75% were likely to do less NHS work in the following year, with private dentistry typically offering higher pay and more time with individual patients. Brine warned that “contract reform alone is unlikely to bring back dentists who have already left the NHS or are considering leaving in the near future.”

Activist groups such as Toothless in England have been protesting outside Parliament throughout the inquiry.

Brine said “we endorse the government’s ambition to ensure that everyone who needs an NHS dentist can access one. Belatedly, now is the time to deliver it.”

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