Playing our part

Throughout the BDJ portfolio, we've featured the work of charities that go out and really make a difference. From outreach projects in the UK to charities delivering oral health overseas, I'm proud to represent the portfolio knowing we make a difference.

One such charitable cause is Mouth Cancer Action Month, and it's a charity close to my heart. For four years I was in a privileged position to listen to and then share to the wider world the stories of mouth cancer patients. For those individuals to have let me into such a vulnerable part of their life to raise awareness of a disease that remains low on the public's radar showed strength many of us can only dream of.

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And yet, as we draw the curtain on 2023, I wonder whether it's a disease that, due to factors beyond its control, we will soon be hearing more about. Take the access to NHS dentistry, for example. There is not a day that goes by without 'X location loses last NHS dentist' or 'Y part of the country experiences unimaginable waiting lists'. We hear about DIY dentistry, about extractions in children, but do we hear enough about the impact on mouth cancer checks? It's a fundamental part of a checkup, and so if patients can't get in to see a dentist, they're not going to get the checks they need.

So, where would they then get those checks? By going private, of course, but there's a cost-of-living crisis, too, so can patients even afford it? We know that patients cite finances as a barrier to NHS dentistry, so logic would suggest finances would be an even bigger barrier to private services.

In this issue, Dr Nigel Carter, Chief Executive of the Oral Health Foundation, addresses these two adjacent topics.¹ November is Mouth Cancer Action Month, an opportunity to laser-focus in on these issues and the potential impact they may have. In his article, he cites two particularly troubling statistics from research the Oral Health Foundation has conducted: more than one-in-three (36%) cite NHS dental access as the biggest barrier towards visiting the dentist and a similar amount (35%) claim the rise in cost of living has prevented them from making a dental appointment.

At heart, these are political issues. They are within the government's remit to correct and alter course, but for longer than I care to remember, you get the impression dentistry falls towards the lower end of their priorities. It must be so disheartening for the profession to keep motivated, to keep plodding on. Legitimate questions surrounding how much longer that scenario will play out should be asked - we haven't even mentioned the recruitment crisis feeding into the access crisis.

Patients will be the ones who lose out. Will mouth cancer rates boom? Will they be caught at stages IV and V, where survival rates are known to plummet? Education has had to step into the void to replace political inaction, and so the profession must play its part. There are several resources on the Mouth Cancer Action Month website, and it all starts with a conversation, and it isn't - or shouldn't be - limited to the campaign month. Mouth cancer doesn't take 11 months of the year off. In the face of a 'perfect storm' limiting patient access to a checkup, we must educate at every possible opportunity. ◆