County's dental care in crisis (From Western Telegraph)

County's dental care in crisis

Dental provision in Pembrokeshire is at crisis point, with Haverfordwest likely to be without any NHS dentists within six months, members of the town council heard last week.

Councillor Charles Davies told fellow members there were only two dentists currently taking NHS patients in the town, but both were planning to take only private patients from October.

Cllr Davies said: "This is not a criticism of dentists in Haverfordwest but a criticism of the system in general."

Cllr Davies' views were backed by Stewart Moncur, director of planning and primary care for the Local Health Board.

Mr Moncur said: "There is a national shortage of dentists willing to work in the NHS and it is very difficult to attract people here."

Mr Moncur explained that £40,000 grants were available to dentists within the NHS but recruitment and retention were a problem.

"Since the Welsh Dental Initiative in 1995, Dyfed-Powys has seen 20 new dentists come into the area but in reality as we have brought more dentists in, even more have been leaking out at the other end. Although more people are coming in the numbers are not increasing," he said.

"It would be fair to say that a dentist working solely in the NHS has to work very hard to make it pay. The bottom line is that this is not something that is going to be resolved, even if someone were to throw a lot of money at it tomorrow - that just would not work."

Mr Moncur was not totally pessimistic about the future and confirmed negotiations were ongoing with at least two dentists from outside the region about possible relocation to Pembrokeshire.

"We have got a number of schemes under way and we are hopeful that we are going to bring more dentists into the area," he said.