6. Will the Minister make a statement on the recruiting and training of dentists in north Wales? OAQ55079

There are now more dentists providing NHS care in north Wales and we have increased training for dental hygienists and therapists by 41 per cent. Building on this progress, Health Education and Improvement Wales is reviewing training provision and considering different service models that could improve dentists' workloads and make practices more sustainable.

Thank you for that response. The truth of the matter is that a shortage of dentists is the major problem we are facing, rather than a lack of money, in this context, in terms of the provision of dentistry services in north Wales. We haven't been training enough dentists in Wales, and too few of the dentists who are trained come from Wales and intend to remain here.

These may sound like very familiar arguments, because these are the very arguments that we were making over far too long a period in terms of the need to have medical training in north Wales. It took too long. Now that that medical training is in place, people are seeing the possibilities and are already talking about establishing a full medical school, and also looking forward to having a dental training unit in Bangor to run alongside the medical school.

This is something that I would warmly welcome. I'm asking for a commitment from you as a Government to ensure that there will be no barriers in terms of ensuring that this unit can be established, and established soon, in order to ensure that this problem of the dentistry workforce can be given every chance of being addressed.

Well, looking at the broader dentistry workforce, on my last visit to north Wales, I managed to visit the Valley Dental Practice on my way to celebrating the opening of the all-Wales faculty for dental professional training in Bangor University. So, we're investing in north Wales and that is, like I said, the all-Wales faculty, providing training and leadership for that wider group of dental care professionals. Actually, the example of the Valley practice is a good example of where contract reform is making a real difference, from recruiting a dentist who then works with a wider range of professionals, that now means that there are 3,000 more NHS patients on lists in that particular area compared with two years ago. And that is because of the deliberate use of skill mix and the professional development needs they've got. When I met people in the faculty in Bangor, they were talking about the help they've been able to provide to a range of practices about how they run their practice and what that means in terms of the best use of the time of the dentists themselves, and also making it a more attractive proposition for people to come into the area.

I am, of course, open-minded about the future for dental training. I don't have a hard-and-fast idea about not increasing numbers or, indeed, where those people train. It's about having a properly evidenced case and understanding what that means in terms of investment and the opportunities to do so. As we have done with general practice training, we've shown a level of ambition that we've been able to meet and to consistently increase over the last couple of years. I'm entirely open-minded about the evidence that we get from the investments we're already making about what that could mean, not just for north Wales, but for the rest of the country too.