Written question WQ93278

My officials are currently in negotiations with the British Dental Association with the aim of developing a new contract that is fairer for both the public and dentists. Concluding this process will be key in attracting more dentists to work in the NHS.

Since April 2022, practices in Wales have been offered the opportunity to opt-in to a variation of their UDA (units of dental activity) contract. This encourages the provision of care on a risk and needs basis and includes a requirement to see a set number of new patients, dependent on the practice’s NHS contract value.

For the last two years, between 83% and 89% of contract values have elected to operate under this new arrangement and this has resulted in nearly 379,000 new patients gaining access to an NHS dentist across Wales and receiving a full course of treatment. A further 114,000 new patients have received urgent care. In South Wales East, more than 67,000 new patients have received a full course of treatment since 1 April 2022 and a further 26,000 have received urgent care since April 2023.

Workforce is a key part of improving access to NHS dental care and we are looking to identify and establish innovative opportunities to upskill and improve career pathways in dentistry to make working in Wales more attractive. Health Education and Improvement Wales is focusing on recruitment and retention and has launched a scheme to incentivise dental trainees in dental practices across rural Wales. Graduates opting to undertake their training in rural areas can also benefit from the Welsh Enhanced Recruitment Offer (WERO), which was established in September 2023 and offers an additional £5,000 i (rising to £7,000 from September 2024), plus additional educational and wellbeing support.

We are also focused on making the way people gain access to NHS dental care fairer. We are doing this through the development an all-Wales digital access portal, which will enable people to register their interest in receiving NHS dental care. This will provide health boards with a clear understanding of need in their area and enable them to manage the allocation of people to dental practices as capacity allows. It will remove the need for people to have to ring multiple practices and provide a much fairer mechanism for people to access NHS dental care. We will begin testing the system in Powys this month.