5. What action is the Welsh Government taking to improve access to NHS dentists in North Wales? OQ58262

Additional investment, contract reform, progressive lifting of COVID restrictions and the opening of the north Wales dental academy are amongst the actions being taken to improve access to NHS dentistry in the Member’s region.

Thank you, First Minister. I certainly welcome the action being taken to address some of these issues, but nevertheless, I am inundated, actually, with constituents contacting me regarding their difficulties in accessing NHS dentists in north Wales. A number of constituents have been in touch from Wrexham who've been told they're going to have to wait up to two years before they can see a dentist. I've had residents in touch from the Vale of Clwyd who've said that they've been told they will have to wait three years before they can access dentistry. And I think part of the frustration here, First Minister, is that these are people who are paying their taxes, paying their national insurance, but not receiving the service those taxes are supposed to fund, and essentially, residents are therefore having to pay twice, because they're paying through their taxes and then having to access these services through private dental care instead. And it seems to me at the moment that dentists, whilst seemingly happy to offer the private care, don't perhaps seem happy with the NHS contracts that you've put in place, because they're simply not offering their services through NHS work.

So, I wonder, First Minister, what assessment have you made so far of this uptake of those NHS contracts by dentists, and what discussions are you having with the British Dental Association to make sure that there are enough dentists for my residents who live in north Wales?

I'm grateful for the opportunity to set out the facts in relation to the dental contract, because we rehearsed this significantly on the floor of the Senedd at the end of March, when the leader of the opposition told me that not a single practice in the Hywel Dda area was prepared to sign up for the new contract and that there would be a collapse of dental services within a few weeks. In fact, in the Hywel Dda health board, 92 per cent of NHS dentistry is now being provided by practices who have signed up to the new contract. That rises to 96 per cent in north Wales and to 99 per cent in Swansea bay. So, let us lay this to rest this afternoon. The idea that dentists as a whole in Wales were not prepared to sign up to the new contract voluntarily—they had the choice; if they wanted to, they could, if they didn't want to, they didn't have to—they have done so overwhelmingly in every part of Wales, and that is very good news for the Member's constituents, because part of the new contract is that by taking dentists off the treadmill of the old unit of dental activity approach, they will be able to see new patients, new NHS patients, in all parts of Wales.

Now, as to the recruitment of new dentists, I have no doubt that when he replies to the people who inundate his inbox, the Member will be explaining that Brexit, the end of free movement, the end of mutual recognition of professional qualifications—. The Members are very keen over there always to quote to me what the profession says. I'm just telling them what the British Dental Association and others have said. In north Wales particularly, where the large corporate bodies had taken over practices, what they have found is that people who they were able to recruit from other parts of the European Union have returned to other parts of the European Union. Now, when they seek to recruit dentists who previously were able to come to them without any barriers at all, they have to go through the sponsorship route, with all its complexities and uncertainties. And part of the difficulties experienced by people in north Wales are directly attributable to the way in which Brexit has made it more difficult to recruit and retain people who, up until the time that they were advised by members of the Conservative Party that everything would be better in their lives, if only they took the risk that they were invited to take, they find that those services have been compromised as a result.

The body that funds people for training here in Wales is developing the approach to the workforce, which I myself have always believed was the best one for this profession, and that is diversification. It is not a matter simply of recruiting and training dentists themselves; you need a cadre of dental nurses, of therapists, and the new cadre of dental assistants able to carry out those parts of dental work, and leaving those most highly trained and most professionally qualified parts of the workforce to do the things that only a dentist can do.

I had a question last week from Sam Kurtz that I thought very well set out the progress that has been made in GP practices to do exactly that: to diversity the profession and to use the—[Interruption.] Yes, the very first question that I had last week, I thought he set out the case very well. Now we need to see the same approach adopted by dentists, so that we can make the very best use of their qualifications and ability, and that is by using other people who can be just as successfully part of that wider clinical team, allowing them, therefore, to see more of Sam Rowlands's constituents.