Covid-19: Dental Services

Baroness Bull Excerpts
Tuesday 10th November 2020

(3 years, 5 months ago)

Lords Chamber
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Lord Bethell Portrait Lord Bethell (Con)
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My Lords, one area where the Government have made a big commitment to dentists is in PPE. As of Wednesday 4 November, over 5,000 dental and orthodontic providers in England had registered with the PPE portal and over 36 million items of PPE had been delivered. In terms of the commitment to workers, I will have to come back to the noble Baroness.

Baroness Bull Portrait Baroness Bull (CB)
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My Lords, I declare my interests as set out in the register. Reduced clinical capacity not only impacts on patients but massively disrupts the education of dental students, who typically treat over 400,000 volunteer patients each year as part of training. Since March, many schools have been unable to provide any patient-facing education at all. Will the Government respond to requests from dental schools and hospitals to invest in high-quality simulation facilities, to mitigate the impact of this reduced clinical experience and ensure that students can graduate and provide the workforce of the future?