Healthwatch Richmond has highlighted a crisis in the NHS dental service with hundreds of people in pain forced to pay for treatment.

Evidence provided by the public body to a Parliamentary inquiry into NHS dentistry paints a damning picture of how families in the Richmond borough are treated.

There have been horror stories around the country of people resorting to pulling out their own rotten teeth, while at the same time clinics overseas from Turkey to Poland and, bizarrely, even Ukraine are taking on British patients.

Talking about the local situation, Healthwatch Richmond said: "It is clear that a substantial backlog of care exists, is very likely to be growing, and that this is repeated across the country."

The organisation said it has helped hundreds of people unable to find care amid evidence that 'half of patients were unable to access dental care unless they could pay'.

It added: "We have evidence … to suggest that some people are at risk of being overcharged for NHS dentistry.

"Examples of this include parents being required to register with a dentist as a private patient to secure NHS dentistry care for their children and people prepaying for 'NHS dental treatment' but then being offered only private treatment options with additional costs beyond the NHS Bands.

"Vulnerable people, parents, pregnant people, those with English as an additional language, digitally excluded people and those with limited mobility or without access to private transport are particularly at risk of this unequal treatment as they are less able to access alternative NHS dentistry provision."

The organisation said that prior to March 2020, dental enquiries accounted for 8.4% of our statutory activity to "Provide information and advice to the public about accessing health and social care". But this has now escalated to 32.1% of all enquiries.

It said fewer than one in 50 dentists accept NHS patients and when people in the Richmond borough search for one on the NHS website they will be met with not a single clinic taking on new patients.

Healthwatch Richmond said: "In 2020/21 we were able to identify one or two dentists taking new NHS patients with the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. We have been unable to identify any provision within the borough for the past year."

The problem has been exacerbated by the pandemic and lock-downs, which meant many people missed treatments and check-ups to maintain their teeth and gums.

The organisation said: "NHS dentistry delivered 32.3 million fewer Courses of Treatment, or 70.4 million fewer Units of Dental Activity (UDAs), between April 2020 and March 2022, the latest date for which data is available, compared to the levels delivered 2019-2020.

"Whilst there is no data for 2022-2023 is currently available, our experience does not suggest that NHS dentistry is recovering."