The story is based on a survey - better called a campaign - called Dental Watch, carried out by local Patient Public Involvement (PPIs) Forums and coordinated by the Commission for Patient and Public Involvement for Health. You can read their press release about the survey or access the full details here.

Some quick points that have been lost in the press coverage.

This is NOT a statistical survey. The forms have been circulated through the local PPIs, so the responses are largely from a self-selecting group. It is entirely likely that those replying are more likely to be those who have a complaint about at least some aspect of their dental care.

This is equally true of the survey of dentists, which covers 750 responses out of more than 20,000 dentists nationally.

The BBC website report is carefully worded in how it refers to the survey; not so, however, the headlines on Radio 5live which said that '20% of people in Britain have gone without dental treatment because of the cost'. This is NOT a valid interpretation of this survey, and we should not let them get away with it.

Of course a survey of this kind highlights and gives a voice to legitimate concerns and issues. But it is not a scientific and representative survey and cannot claim to give an accurate picture of public opinion and experiences. Not only is there no representative sample involved, but also it would appear no mechanism for checking and verifying some of the more lurid individual examples quoted.

There is a legitimate debate to be had about the state of oral health and dentistry. I believe that the changes Labour has made are broadly working and are increasing access to dentistry - which has never been anything like a universal service. (And if anyone thinks that the NHS charges are unreasonably high they should scroll to the bottom of the BBC story to see the comparison with typical private charges).

PS. Apologies for the bad pun in the headline ....