We’re clear that the fifty new dental school places confirmed by Government today stand little chance of easing chronic workforce problems or enhancing patient access to NHS dental care without comprehensive reform.
The Office for Students has now allocated twenty-five new undergraduate dentistry places to the University of Portsmouth and the same number to the University of East Anglia. Both institutions will be offering dentistry programmes for the first time from 2027.
Experience suggests that new schools are unlikely to have a game changing impact locally. The 58 places currently offered at Peninsular Dental School in Plymouth appear to have done little to take the edge off the South West’s chronic access issues.
In the grand scheme of things, these numbers are tiny and are on track to represent less than 2% of new registrants, given the singular focus on overseas trained dentists.
“No one in the 21st century should struggle to access basic dental care or, even worse, forced to take matters into their own hands,” said Minister for Care Stephen Kinnock, as he marked this announcement.
It’s a worthy sentiment, but this policy alone really can’t deliver that level of change.
“New dental schools are a step forward but are no silver bullet for ending dental deserts” warns our Chair, Eddie Crouch.
“Keeping even this tiny number of new graduates in the NHS hinges on making the service a place dentists would choose to build a career.
“That means real reform, wedded to sustainable funding.”
We have been clear with the press and our political partners: without fundamental reform of the discredited NHS contract, wedded to a sustainable funding settlement, there is little hope of arresting the crisis in the service.