DENTAL patients have the opportunity to help shape the future of urgent and emergency care provision in the area through a review beginning this month.

The Durham, Darlington and Tees area team of NHS England will work in partnership with dentists to canvas people’s views.

The survey will gather views of patients who have direct experience of accessing urgent and emergency dental care and local services.

The findings will then be considered by the local dental network and the area team to inform their proposals to improve urgent and emergency dental care into the future.

More than 30,000 people each year access the urgent and emergency dental care pathways that are currently in place across the North-East.

Paul Howlett, local dentist and chairman of the Durham, Darlington and Tees Local Dental Network, said: “Urgent and emergency dental care services are a real lifeline for anyone who finds themselves with a serious dental problem both during and outside of normal working hours.

“As part of our review we are committed to improving public awareness of services that are available, the quality of urgent and emergency dental care services that are provided and the experience of each and every patient.

“Patients can help us by sharing their views of urgent and emergency care service provision so that we can learn from their personal experiences. However, it’s also important for us to hear from people who have never needed to access the service before or who were unaware that there are services they can access."

To contribute to the review, complete an online questionnaire at surveymonkey.com/s/KNBZMFZ before June 29.