The number of people needing a teeth retainer or other dental work but not getting it has soared during the pandemic, as people have held back from making appointments.

Dentists are open on a limited basis, with NHS practitioners obliged to carry out 45 per cent of the normal level of contracted work. However, it appears many either think their local dentist is closed or consider it too risky to make an appointment and potentially contract coronavirus.

This week, the Burnley Express reported that the situation in Lancashire is particularly acute, with dentists suggesting the impact of the pandemic on oral health will take years to fix.

It quoted figures from NHS Digital that revealed 450,000 people aged 18 and over saw a dentist in the county in the two years to December 2020, which equates to only 47 per cent of the adult population.

While this is clearly not all down to the pandemic, the figure compares with 50 per cent in the two years up to the end of 2018 and 2019. This suggests a bad situation has been made worse, with people hesitant to go to the dentist in the first instance being more reluctant to go, even though they may have very good reasons to get treatment. 

These figures are the latest among many to highlight the issue, which has affected regions across the UK.  

Scotland is another case in point, with the British Dental Association Scotland sounding the alarm last month after there was a major decline in appointments during the pandemic.

It noted that between May and December 2020 the number of patients seen by dentists in Scotland was only around a quarter of the figure for the same periods in 2018 and 2019.

Of particular concern was the fact that people from the poorest backgrounds were the least likely to have been to the dentist. Only 73.5 per cent of children and 55.9 per cent of adults in the most deprived locations had been to a dentist in the previous two years, compared with 85.7 per cent and 67.1 per cent respectively in the least deprived areas.