Written question WQ94850
- Asked by
- Siân GwenllianPlaid
- To be answered by
- Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care
- Tabled
- Due
- Answered
- Time to answer
- 10 days
Question
What consideration is the Cabinet Secretary giving to expanding the WERO scheme for dentists to include more of Gwynedd, including parts of the Arfon constituency?
Answer
Answered by Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care
WERO is a locally incentivised recruitment scheme that runs alongside national recruitment to recruit to Dental Foundation Training (DFT) places in traditionally hard to recruit rural areas in Wales. All North Wales places for DFT have been filled by either local or national recruitment in the last two years.
The number of WERO placements available have increased from 10 to 15 for September 2024 and two of the placements are in North Wales (Amlwch and Dolgellau).
In total there are 9 foundation training places in the Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board area. Two of these are at the Dental Academy in Bangor which when combined with the WERO placement in Dolgellau means that a third of all DFT places in North Wales are in Gwynedd.
Given that all DFT places are being filled annually any further expansion of the scheme would require more practices to apply to become foundation training supervisors which they can do via Health Education and Improvement Wales (HEIW) here.