Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Health and Social Services – in the Senedd at 3:00 pm on 16 November 2022.
Thank you very much, and thank you for your perseverance on this issue. I think it is really important. It's quite marked, though, that, actually, what I've noticed is that the number of people complaining has actually reduced slightly recently, and part of the reason for that is because the new contract reform system is starting to bite. So, the contract reform system that we introduced, 90 per cent of dentists are now—of the value of their dental contracts—working under those new arrangements, and what that means is that we've seen that 89,500 new patients have gained access to NHS dental services this year. So, it's already gone a long way. There's still a bit more to go; I think we need to get up to about 120,000 in terms of the contract value, so there's still a bit of a way to go, but it will be interesting to hear whether you have noticed that slight reduction in volume on this issue, because it's certainly something that I've noticed.