Truro summit aims to tackle Cornwall’s NHS dental access problem

People driving out of the county just to sit in a dentist’s chair. Parents worried about their children’s teeth. Older residents who have given up waiting and learned to live with the pain. Cornwall Council says that picture has gone on long enough, and it has now set a date to tackle it head on.

A summit in Truro this July

The council has confirmed a dentistry summit at Lys Kernow (County Hall) in Truro on Friday 17th July, running from 10am to 12pm. It follows a motion passed to Full Council in April.

The event opens with a question-and-answer session and moves into a panel discussion with experts. It will be chaired by Julie Skentelbery from BBC Radio Cornwall, who will put questions from an invited audience of stakeholders to the panel alongside questions sent in by residents.

The whole thing will be live streamed on the council’s channels, so people who cannot get to Truro can watch online and submit questions in real time. Those invited to attend include NHS partners, dental professionals, training academies, political representatives and public health professionals.

‘Frankly scandalous’

Leader of Cornwall Council, Cllr Leigh Frost, did not soften his assessment of where things stand.

“Lack of access to NHS dentistry is a longstanding problem in Cornwall.

“It is frankly scandalous that people are travelling huge distances, sometimes outside Cornwall, for basic dental appointments. Parents are worrying about their children. Older people are struggling to get the care they need, and too many residents have become accustomed to living with pain.”

Leigh was clear that nobody should expect an overnight fix.

“This is a complicated issue, and it is bigger than Cornwall. It will not be solved by us pretending there is a quick fix. But we’re not powerless either.

“We can bring the right people together, have an open conversation about the scale of the challenge, and focus on finding practical solutions that will benefit our residents.”

Why dentists don’t stay

One of the questions the summit wants to get to the bottom of is why Cornwall finds it so hard to hold onto dentists.

Cllr Thalia Marrington, Cornwall Council Portfolio Holder for Community Safety and Public Health, said:

“By getting all the right people together we expect to be able to identify some of the key issues, such as why Cornwall struggles to attract dentists and what could be done to make it more attractive for them to stay after studying here.

“By identifying what are local issues and which are national we can begin to work together to tackle some of the local ones and agree what can be done to influence national policy, all of which will go towards improving the services available for residents.

“I’d like to encourage residents to think about their own experiences of accessing dental services in Cornwall to help shape the sorts of questions that need to be asked.”

What the summit wants to achieve

The council has set out what it hopes to come away with. The aims are to:

• Give a clear, evidence-based account of the current state of dental access in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly
• Build a shared understanding across partners, members and the public of the scale of the challenge and what is holding things back
• Pin down what can realistically be delivered locally, and what sits at regional or national level
• Agree a number of practical, system-wide commitments and next steps for all the partners involved

It will also look seriously at prevention-first approaches, including what more can be done through local pilots such as brushing schemes and better oral health advice. The council says the summit will give Cornwall a stronger platform to keep lobbying government on the state of dentistry, and that it is meant to produce real action rather than end as a one-off conversation.

The summit builds on work already done, including a Cornwall Healthwatch report on the dental crisis considered by councillors in October 2025.

How to have your say

Residents can submit questions ahead of the day through the Let’s Talk Cornwall page, and those questions will be asked on the day. The panel will not get through every one, but the council says it will publish as many questions and answers as it can afterwards.

Questions need to be in by 9am on Monday 29th June.