FOI 2025/1192

Questions:

I am interested in the impact of NHS funding cuts to dental care in Bolton Greater Manchester. As a result of cuts, how many patients in the area will be withdrawing patients from dental care, and how many dentists in the area have stopped providing NHS dental care this year, according to your data?

Clarity Requested 9 April 2025:

I write in response to your recent Freedom of Information request, which was received by NHS Greater Manchester today.

To ensure that we provide you with the correct information, I would be grateful if you could please confirm exactly what it is you mean by:

• As a result of cuts, how many patients in the area will be withdrawing patients from dental care?

Please can you advise if this should read “how may dentists in the area will be withdrawing patients from dental care?” If not, please can I ask that you provide more detail/clarity for this question.

I would be grateful if you could respond to us as soon as possible, so that we are able to action your request and provide the information you seek.

Clarity Received 9 April 2025:

I did in fact mean dentists

Clarity Requested 9 April 2025

I write in response to the 2 Freedom of Information requests, received by NHS Greater Manchester today, which have been sent to the Bury and Bolton locality offices and appear to request the same information.

I would like to explain that NHS Greater Manchester consists of 10 Greater Manchester localities; Bolton, Bury, Heywood, Middleton and Rochdale (HMR), Manchester, Oldham, Salford, Stockport. Tameside, Trafford and Wigan (former Clinical Commissioning Groups). Please can you confirm if the information you would like to receive relates to just Bolton and Bury or to all the localities within NHS GM.

I would be grateful if you could respond to us as soon as possible, so that we are able to action your request and provide the information you seek.

Clarity Received 9 April 2025:

I sent several requests out – all to the wrong places! I am interested in all 10 of the localities, yes.

Thank you very much for your help and apologies for wasting time as a result of being unclear in the first instance.

Response:

Over the past year, there have been 5 dental practices choose to withdraw from provision of NHS dental services across Greater Manchester. These were distributed as follows:

1 practice in Wigan Borough

1 practice in the City of Manchester

2 practices in Tameside

1 practice in Bury

Please note that there was no cut in the funding of these practices by the NHS and their withdrawal from providing NHS patient care was their own business decision.

Clarification request received 1 May 2025:

Could I request extra information – what are the names of the dental practices you provided in the attachment (i.e. 1 practice in Wigan Borough, 1 practice in the City of Manchester, 2 practices in Tameside, 1 practice in Bury)

Response to clarification request:

Green Lane Dental Practice, Manchester Road, Leigh, Wigan

Crystalcare Dental Practice, 264 Barlow Moor Road, Manchester

KDPG Ltd, Hattersley Primary Care Centre, Hattersley Road East, Hyde, Tameside

Staley Dental, Waterloo Road, Stalybridge, Tameside

The Bank Dental Practice (Mr Haffner),  437 Bury New Road, Prestwich, Bury