Written question WQ82440

We are making good progress in restoring NHS dental services, with increasing numbers of child and adult patients being treated, and this will continue over the coming months. Practices have been asked to treat people who have experienced problems during lockdown first and also prioritise care for those who had treatment delayed as a result of the pandemic.

Hywel Dda University Health Board has invested an additional £0.6m in 2021-22 to provide more urgent access and out of hours appointments. In December 2020 the Health Board was successful in commissioning a new dental practice in Cardigan. Once fully operational it will provide additional access for North Pembrokeshire residents. The Health Board is also working closely with practices to achieve the new patient access measure introduced by the Welsh Government from April 2021.

Whilst it has been necessary to suspend the Designed to Smile (D2S) national oral health improvement programme during the pandemic, the programme targets schools and nurseries in areas where levels of tooth decay are highest (around 70 settings the Health Board area) and has continued with the delivery of home packs twice a year. The D2S team recently wrote to all participating schools and nurseries to say we hope to be in a position to re-start their tooth-brushing schemes in the Autumn 2021 term. This will be kept under review, depending on the alert level in Wales and prevalence of Covid-19 within local communities.

In addition, the Health Board are working closely with health visiting teams ensuring that prevention advice is adopted as early as 6 months of age. Health visitors are well placed to identify those children who may fall into the high-risk categories and those who do are referred into the Community Dental Service for routine dental care.