28.03.12
Welsh dentistry waiting times too long
Only 37% of dentists in Wales are accepting new patients, the Welsh Liberal Democrats have stated, calling for improvements to the service.
Of the dentists who do accept new patients, 63% have a waiting list, of which 65% were for longer than two months. One practice had a waiting list of six years, the party claimed.
Welsh Liberal Democrats leader Kirsty Williams said: “Although the new dental contract was supposed to improve access to NHS dentists for all, the worrying truth is that NHS dentistry inWalesis still far from a universal public service.
“I believe that dentistry inWaleshas been overlooked by the Welsh Government in recent years and the findings of our survey confirm that there are still considerable problems facing the service.”
The British Dental Association welcomed the research and suggested that health boards needed more direction over dental spending in order to improve accessibility to services.
BDA director in Wales Stuart Geddes said: “The reason why dentists are not able to have more NHS patients is because the local health boards are simply not commissioning the services.
“They have funding available but tend to hold it back to the end of the year before they spend it. It ends up either going to offset another deficit or back to the Welsh Government.
“The Welsh Government is working on an oral health plan but it needs to give more direction to health boards on how they spend their money, and hopefully it will do that once the plan is approved by the minister.”
The Welsh Government has been running pilot schemes to test new ways of working and inform changes to the dental contract. These schemes will run until 2013.
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