6. What are the Welsh Government's priorities for primary care in Mid and West Wales? OQ58976

I thank the Member for that question, Llywydd. In the first part of this Senedd term, we are in the process of agreeing new, reformed contracts with all four branches of primary care across Wales. Our priority is to secure maximum value from those contracts for patients, in terms of access, service sustainability and quality of care.

Thank you very much for the response. 

One aspect of primary care that I think most people know that I'm really concerned about is teeth, and particularly the teeth of our children across Wales. I understand that we don't have data about how many children are actually waiting for an NHS dentist. The only health boards that we've been able to get data from, having asked them specifically, were from Powys and from Cardiff. And, in Powys, a staggering 800 children are recorded as needing, and waiting for, NHS dental care. I met with a mother the other day who had had a phone call from her dentist to tell her that her children could no longer access that particular dentist, because they were switching to private care.63

First Minister, we understand many of the pressures that our dentists are under, but surely in this Siambr, we must be worried about the teeth of our children. So, could I ask you: when will we be getting data on the number of children across Wales who are waiting for an NHS dentist? Diolch yn fawr iawn.

Llywydd, I can't offer the Member an answer to that question, because I think it's actually quite a difficult question to answer, because you are trying to find children who don't do something rather than children who do. In terms of children who do something, then in Powys, since the new contract came to be used by dentists, there have been 1,100 new appointments for children in the last eight months. In the whole of the Member's region, 5,500 new children's appointments have been available in that period, and there is more to come.

So, while we absolutely want to do more, we want to diversify the profession so that there are different ways in which care for our children in the dental field can be provided. When the Minister made her statement on the new contract back in June of last year, we anticipated around 120,000 new appointments in NHS dentistry in Wales; we will exceed that with a quarter of the year still to go. So, while the position remains challenging in many parts of Wales, in the Member's own region, taking Hywel Dda and Powys together, there will be over 13,000 new appointments that weren't available last year that will already have been undertaken this year, with more to come.