Dental Healthcare: East Anglia

Debate between Terry Jermy and Jerome Mayhew

Wednesday 11th December 2024 Westminster Hall

[Jerome Mayhew]

The hon. Member is absolutely right. This is not about one organisation over another; there has to be a collaborative approach. We have plenty of dental need to go round, I am sorry to say, in Suffolk, Essex and Norfolk. The more we can collaborate and provide a synthesis of offers—some in dental health qualifications, some in straightforward dentistry and others in dental hygiene, another key part of this jigsaw that we have to put together—the better.

[Terry Jermy (South West Norfolk) (Lab)]

I am all for cross-party working, but I was struck by the hon. Member’s earlier comments about children. Does he accept that, because of the legacy of so many years of failure, any solutions will be much more difficult to find because we will have dental issues progressing as children grow older?

[Jerome Mayhew]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. There is a difference between milk teeth and grown-up teeth, as I will call them, although I know that is not the technical term. I hope that that assessment is wrong, but undoubtedly there will be problems. If there is a long-term lack of access to dentistry, it builds up problems, whether in the teeth or in the gums, both for children and for adults.

We can all talk about how we got here, and I can defend lots of very good things that the previous Administration did, but did we get everything right? No, we did not. What I am more interested in is how we can encourage the Government and work with them across the parties to solve the problem in the very near future.

I hope we have got to a reasonable analysis of why we are in this position. If it is substantially because of a lack of dental training facilities in the east of England, an obvious solution, although not the sole solution, would be a school of oral health at the University of East Anglia. The Minister knows that the UEA is ready to go. He knows that there is a building under construction and that a large amount of funding has been applied for, some of which has been already agreed. He knows that the UEA is making an application for registration with the General Dental Council and that it will be completed within the next six weeks at the latest.

That brings us to the crucial next step, which is the Office for Students. I recognise that the Minister is important and impotent at the same time. He is important because as the dental Minister he sets direction and gives impetus to change, but I accept that in some sense he is impotent because the Office for Students is an arm’s-length independent body. I hope he will take these requests in the light of my acknowledgment of his constraints, but it would be helpful for the UEA and the residents of our area to have his confirmation on the following three points.

First, can the Minister confirm whether additional dental training places will be made available by the Office for Students in 2025? It is a political decision how much funding the Government are prepared to put into the overall number of dental training places in the country in 2025. What is the pot that the Office for Students has to work with? Can he confirm that the number will be increased to take account of increased need?

Secondly, if that is the case, will there be a regional allocation within that global figure specifically for the east of England, given that the need is not national? There are regional variations, and in the east of England it is worst of all. There is precedent for that approach: recently, medical training places had a regional allocation, although I accept that historically it has not happened with dental places. It is an important point and would be of huge encouragement to our residents.

Thirdly, can the Minister give some indication of the timetable on which he and the Office for Students will work to process the 2025 allocations?