Community Dental Services

Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Health and Social Services – in the Senedd at 2:20 pm on 12 October 2022.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan Labour 2:20, 12 October 2022

Thanks very much. We are already seeing a difference as a result of that new contract. So, 73,000 new patients have already gained access this year, and as I say, we expect that to reach 112,000 new patients during that financial year. So already it is making a difference. We also have the new dental academy in Bangor, which we hope is going to provide access to between 12,000 and 15,000 patients, and that's going to be open for six days a week.

The point is, although there's a lot of noise in the system about NHS dentists leaving, the reality is that only 14 per cent of the contracts have been handed back. Eighty-nine per cent of the total dental contract value has moved on to the new contract. But you don't lose those from the NHS—you redistribute them. So it's not lost just because they go somewhere else. They're just redistributed. 

We have been recruiting more dentists, and I'm certainly putting a lot of pressure on Health Education and Improvement Wales to make sure that we drive up the number of dental therapists in future, because I do think we have to get to a new model where we're talking about a team approach rather than everything being reliant on the dentist.