NHS Dentistry

Fiona Bruce Excerpts

Tuesday 9th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

One of the most important steps the Government can take to improve access to NHS dental care is to boost our workforce and train more dentists and dental professionals, in line with the Government’s NHS long-term workforce plan, which has a clear reference to dental training as a priority. I will focus in particular on the importance of training dental professionals, who support dentists in many important ways. The workforce plan recognises that we must ensure that the skills of our whole dental workforce are utilised, by supporting dental hygienists, dental therapists, dental nurses and others to provide additional care, freeing up more time for dentists and increasing overall dental care and provision. I will focus on the importance of that and what the Government are doing to prioritise it.

I digress briefly by saying that in my own professional background as a solicitor—I refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests—I know how vital it is that our support staff are there to help the qualified solicitors do our job. We could not work without them and without their expertise, often honed over many years and in particular specialised areas. The same applies to the dental profession.

I applaud and commend all those who work in the profession and support dentists. I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement that we must empower them to take on even more responsibility—not because it is a burden, but because I can see how those working in professional environments find their work increasingly fulfilling the more responsibility they are trained to take on. I support her statement that we should do that and ensure that those staff are qualified, competent and indemnified.

Turning to the NHS long-term workforce plan in particular, while it is commendable that dentistry training places have a target and the Government are working to expand places by 24% by 2028-29, I particularly applaud the focus on increasing training places for dental therapy and hygiene professionals by 28% in the same period, adding hundreds more professionals to our dental workforce. That work is not just looking to the future, but is happening now: in the past year, NHS England has made an investment in postgraduate dental specialty training, focused on areas currently underserviced by existing provision, which will improve access to specialist dental services.

As the plan states:

“We recognise the important contribution to dental care that the wider dental workforce makes, including dental nurses. While training of dental nurses is largely the responsibility of dental practices, we will work with dental practices and other stakeholders to support the wider dental workforce to meet NHS service delivery plans for dentistry.”

It is heartening to note that

“the Plan aims to deliver 15% of dental activity through dental therapists and dental hygienists, as opposed to the current estimate of 5%.”

That has to be a positive target to work to. In addition, the plan focuses on the

“national Return to Therapy programme…being developed to enable dental therapists working as hygienists to fulfil their full scope of practice”,

and states that

“NHS England is reforming contractual arrangements to encourage more dentists back into NHS practice and to make it easier for therapists and hygienists to provide NHS care”.

I will move on to the consultation that the Government held on making better use of the whole dental workforce, supporting dental hygienists and therapists to provide additional care to patients. I know the Secretary of State has said that the Government will shortly set out the outcome of the consultation. I urge them to do so and to take particular note of any contributions to that consultation from dental hygienists, therapists or nurses. They have so much to offer through their work at the coalface on the challenges that we all recognise in ensuring that everyone can see a dentist quickly and receive the treatment they need to keep themselves healthy and well. Dental care is an essential part of the NHS and should continue to be so for the future.