Patients are overdosing on paracetamol due to a shortage of dentists
- Toothache patients are left in pain, unable to access emergency treatment
- Taking too much paracetamol can cause deadly liver failure
- Millions of people have no access to a local NHS dental service
Eliza Slawther For Mailonline
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Patients with dental pain are overdosing on painkillers because they are unable to access professional treatment, claims a new report.
The two-year study found that 38 per cent of emergency admissions for paracetamol overdose were a direct result of dental pain.
Paracetamol overdosing can occur after taking too much paracetamol over a number of hours or days, leading to liver failure, which may be fatal.
The study comes as Britain is gripped by a dental crisis, which has meant charities, normally assisting third world countries, have been forced to step in and help British patients as dentists are too busy to treat them.
Researchers looked at 436 patients who presented at Nottingham’s Queen’ Medical Centre AE from May 2014 to April 2016 with accidental paracetamol overdose.
Self-medicating: patients unable to access dental services in an emergency are accidentally overdosing on paracetamol in an attempt to relieve pain, caused by a shortfall of NHS dentists
Some 164 of these admissions were patients with toothache, of which over half had contacted their dentist beforehand and 62 per cent required medical admission.
Henrik Overgaard-Nielsen, the British Dental Association’s chairman of general dental practice told The Times that ‘lives are at risk’.
He explained: ‘Failure to invest in both routine and emergency dental care is jeopardising appropriate diagnosis and treatment, and heaping needless pressure across the NHS.’
The authors of the study, published in the British Dental Journal, wrote that dental pain contributes to a ‘significant’ number of paracetamol overdose AE admissions, which highlights ‘a lack of public awareness surrounding safe self-medication and inadequate access to timely emergency dental care’
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Study co-author and consultant Andrew Sidebottom told the BBC that emergency cover is often ‘overbooked’, making treatment difficult, as well as patients being afraid to see a dentist.
The maximum safe dose of paracetamol for adults is eight 500mg tablets spread out over 24 hours.
The usual dose is one or two 500mg tablets at a time, with a four to six hour break between doses.
An investigation by The Times in November found millions of Brits were unable to access their local NHS dentist, as they were not accepting new patients.
Dentists in the UK described being so inundated with targets and admin that they did not have time to focus on the dental health of their patients, resulting in a ‘national disaster’.
More than 400 dentists signed a letter which said the system is ‘under-resourced and focused more upon experimental targets and tick boxes than patients’ and was sent to The Telegraph.
Dentaid, a charity which works across parts of Africa, Asia and Central America, set up its first UK-based scheme in West Yorkshire two years ago, providing low-income patients with free care.
One in six areas of the UK have no dentists left taking new patients, previous research has shown.
NHS dentistry is also facing a recruitment crisis, with over two thirds of practices struggling to fill vacancies, according to the British Dental Association.
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