Things looking a little ‘whiter’ for Fermanagh’s Dentists says Elliott
The announcement that the Dentistry service in Northern Ireland is to receive a 6.4 million pounds boost has been greeted with delight by local Ulster Unionist MLA, Tom Elliott.
Mr Elliott said: “This is great news for the local area as many people in Fermanagh and South Tyrone are struggling to find a dentist that caters for NHS users or to afford the rates of private dentistry services.
“Within Fermanagh, many people have to spend months attempting to find a dentist but with the new incentives laid out by Health Minister Michael McGimpsey I am hopeful that we will see more dentists providing NHS treatment in Fermanagh and South Tyrone and indeed across Northern Ireland.
“The number of dentists in Northern Ireland has never been the problem, and indeed we have the highest ratio of dentists per head of the population in the United Kingdom. The problem has been that many of these dentists have gone private in recent years and it was vital that there was a move like this to encourage them to become available once more for the majority of citizens in Northern Ireland who use the NHS.”
The announcements include financial packages concerning four main areas of dentistry treatment. 2 million pounds will be used to help with continuing price rises in the operational costs of running a dental practise. 1.5 million will go towards helping increase the standards of sterilisation and disinfecting practises. £500,000 will go towards training allowances with a further £400,000 to be used as subsidy for current dentists and to encourage dentists that have left the NHS service to return. Of the 6.4 million pounds that will be injected into the service this year, 4.5 million pounds of investment will be recurrent, an increase of over 50% in funding for the service.
The Ulster Unionist MLA concluded: “Within the United Kingdom, Northern Ireland has the worst dental health. For example, in comparison to the rest of the UK our 12-year-olds have almost three times the level of dental decay. With these new investments I firmly believe that inadequacies such as this will improve dramatically or disappear completely within the coming years. As more dentists return to providing NHS care this will make it easier to receive the dental health provision that we all deserve without having to pay large amounts of money to private practises.”