North Wales MS hits out at lack of NHS dentists in the region

A North Wales Senedd Member has hit out over a lack of NHS dentists in the region.

Conservative MS Sam Rowlands said he had been contacted by a large number of people struggling to access dental services.

He has called on First Minister Mark Drakeford to take urgent action to tackle the issue.

Speaking in the Senedd yesterday, Mr Rowlands, Shadow Minister for Local Government said: “I am inundated 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 have been told they are going to have to wait up to two years before they can see an NHS dentist.

“I have had residents from the Vale of Clwyd who have said that they have been told they will have to wait three years before they can access dentistry.

“I think part of the frustration is that these are people who are paying their taxes and national insurance, but not receiving the service those taxes are supposed to fund, essentially, residents are therefore having to pay twice, because they are paying through their taxes and then having to access these services through private dental care instead.

“It seems to me at the moment that dentists, whilst seemingly happy to offer the private care, do not perhaps seem happy with the NHS contracts that you have put in place, because they are simply not offering their services through NHS work.”

Mr Rowlands asked Mr Drakeford what action the Welsh Government was taking to improve access to NHS dentists in North Wales.

The First Minister denied there had been issues with the new contract, with 96 per cent of NHS dentistry now being provided by practices who have signed up to it in North Wales.

He said recruitment issues in the area had partly been caused by Brexit.

He 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.

“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.

“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.

“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.

“(This leaves) those most highly trained and most professionally qualified parts of the workforce to do the things that only a dentist can do.”