A mother has described how her seven-year-old non-verbal autistic son spent four months in agony with a dental abscess while waiting for "urgent" tooth extractions. Hayley Bramhall, from Macclesfield, said her son Philip Smith now requires several teeth removed after the abscess worsened.
Campaign for transparency
The British Dental Association is calling on the government to release waiting time data for complex dental work carried out in hospitals. Hayley started an online government petition calling for children with special educational needs to be seen within 12 weeks, which has gained 943 signatures and been flooded with comments from parents facing similar delays.
She said: "It's heartbreaking watching your child live with that level of pain and knowing there's so little you can do. Philip spent his seventh birthday with an abscess and in intense pain. I didn't realise things were this bad until I started the petition and it was just horror story after horror story. There are children waiting with an exposed nerve for over 12 months. Some children have been waiting years."
Impact on daily life
Hayley added: "As much as he is trying to carry on being his happy little self, you can see how much it is affecting him. He's changed the way he eats to avoid using that side of his mouth, and I'm constantly worried he'll stop eating altogether because he already has such a restricted diet. When he's in pain, he can hurt himself. I'm giving him paracetamol whenever he needs it, but I worry about how long he's been relying on it. The hospital won't prescribe any more antibiotics now. We just have to keep watching and hope the infection doesn't spread. School have noticed the difference too. He often sits holding his mouth in his hands. It's as though the pain is becoming normal for him."
Philip has now been given a hospital date for his operation at the end of the month.
Wider crisis
Tooth decay remains the number one reason for hospital admissions among young children, which ministers have labelled a "Dickensian" legacy of previous Conservative governments. The BDA says some children are waiting years for tooth extractions because surgery competes with other NHS operations for theatre time.
Historically, waiting lists have shown tens of thousands of children on year-long waits. The government announced it was collecting new monthly data on these waiting times from August 2025, but officials have not published it and have declined Freedom of Information requests from the BDA.
BDA Chair Eddie Crouch said: "The Government has no shortage of soundbites on children ending up in hospital for extractions. But kids facing yearlong waits have yet to get anything that looks like real support. The reality is, embarrassing waiting list data is getting buried. Dentists are being told to down tools to help hit other government NHS targets. What we're not seeing is the openness and resources to tackle this."
A spokesman for the Department of Health and Social Care said: "Our sympathies go out to Philip and all children waiting for urgent dental treatment. This government has taken swift action to rebuild NHS dentistry. Our reforms prioritise patients with the greatest need, improving access across the country, and tackling tooth decay from an early age. We're on track to deliver 2.5 million additional courses of treatment."
The Mirror has launched the Dentists for All campaign with the BDA, calling for a return to universal access to NHS dentistry.
