Shocking numbers needing emergency dental treatment across Worcestershire
… New official figures expose consequences of lack of access to NHS dentists

An alarming number of people across Worcestershire need emergency dental treatment in hospital because of a lack of access to NHS dentists, it was revealed this week. These urgent admissions are a direct result of patients not having an NHS dentist who is normally able to treat them in an emergency.

• New figures extracted by the Conservatives show that across the country, 22,000 people had to be admitted to hospital for emergency dental treatment last year. These emergency hospital admissions are costing the NHS £13 million a year.
• In the Worcestershire PCT, 179 people received emergency dental treatment in hospitals, costing the local NHS an estimated £106 612. Most of this has to be borne by already over-stretched A&E departments.
• This comes as the latest NHS figures show that 50% of the population across Worcestershire have not been seen by an NHS dentist in the last two years.

Karen said:

“These figures underline once again the Labour Government’s appalling failure on NHS dentistry. Half of the people in Worcestershire have been unable to see an NHS dentist. It comes as no surprise that 179 people have been forced to hospital last year for emergency dental care – straining our over-stretched A&E departments still further.

Having a dentist should not be a luxury but a necessity and I know just how much I value my dentist.

“We need to cut out Labour’s waste and bureaucracy in NHS dentistry and restore access to an NHS dentist to the million who have lost one under this Government.”

Conservatives have announced a series of reforms to NHS dentistry which will improve NHS care. The comprehensive plan proposes:

• Creating new incentives for dentists to spend more time on preventative dental care, improving oral health and reducing long-term costs.
• Restoring access to an NHS dentist for the one million patients who have lost it under Labour, by removing costly bureaucracy and cutting out waste.
• Using money currently spent on carrying out unnecessary treatments to reintroduce dental screening for children in schools.
• Ensuring that taxpayer-trained dentists work for the NHS for at least five years.

Council tax cover-up: New evidence of serious errors in council tax bills
… Surge in council tax appeals in Redditch reveals systematic over-charging by Government

Gordon Brown and his Ministers are deliberately covering up serious problems over the banding of homes for council tax, Karen Lumley the Tories Parliamentary Spokesman, warned this week. New figures have revealed that Whitehall’s council tax snoopers have been forced to redo the council tax bands of thousands of homes after appeals by householders across Redditch and the country.

• Official papers from Gordon Brown’s council tax inspectors, the Valuation Office Agency, have admitted that many homes are in the wrong band for council tax and families have been paying over the odds for years. Accidentally leaked minutes have confessed that if the tax errors became known, the Government would lose money and would have to pay tax refunds. This was also ruled out since it would generate “adverse press coverage… in the current climate”.

• The combination of a campaign by ‘Money Saving Expert’ Martin Lewis, the publication of these leaked minutes and an ITV Tonight documentary, has produced a surge in council tax appeals. Now Parliamentary Questions have forced the Government to publish detailed figures on the changes to council tax bands.

• In the last three years, 190,000 existing homes have had their council tax band changed: 133,985 homes have moved down a band. In Redditch 190 homes have moved down a council tax band as a result of appeals. This proves there are serious and systematic errors in the banding of homes, which Ministers have been covering up to save money.

• Wales has been used as a test-bed for a council tax revaluation. Three times as many homes moved up a band as down. Yet since that 2005 revaluation, a succession of errors has also been uncovered with the Valuation Office Agency’s work. To date, 1 in 20 homes in Wales have had their post-revaluation banding corrected. A wholesale council tax revaluation has thus caused more problems than it solved.

Karen said:

“We now have clear evidence of a council tax cover-up. The Labour Government has been caught red-handed fiddling council tax to make families in Redditch and across the country pay more. Whitehall bureaucrats know that many homes across the country are wrongly banded, but have refused to correct the tax inspectors’ errors to save the Government money and save face.

“The whole basis of our tax system is undermined if the state conspires to over-charge the public. Labour Ministers only want to reform the council tax system if it rakes in extra cash for Gordon Brown’s coffers.”