Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Health and Social Services – in the Senedd at 2:49 pm on 15 June 2022.
Thank you for your answer, Minister. I've been raising in this Chamber for years and years and years the issue of my constituents not being able to access a local NHS dentist. Now, this was well before the pandemic started, okay—well before the pandemic started. What my constituents tell me now is that, if they contact an NHS dentist, they get put on a waiting list, which they get told could be up to three years, or they get offered a dentist and it could be a two-hour round trip to the nearest dentist because we don't have the transport provision available to accommodate that. Can I say, Minister—and I heard your answer to Laura Anne Jones in terms of more dentists now being available—that this is the information I've got: there are 83 fewer dentists now than there were at the beginning of the pandemic? You've talked about the new contract, but, when I speak to dentists, they tell me something very different: they tell me that new contract is actually not helpful because it takes the focus away from regular check-ups, it makes dentists choose between old and new patients, it pays dentists based on out-of-date performance data, and is also funded by a falling amount—in fact, 15 per cent less than it was six years ago. So, can I ask you, do you agree with me that there is a genuine capacity issue in people being able to access or register with an NHS dentist? And what more are you going to do and are the Welsh Government going to do, to ensure that, in two years' time, I'm not standing here again asking when my constituents can get an NHS local dentist?