Joe O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for the opportunity to address the issue of participation of dentists in the dental treatment services scheme in County Galway.

The dental treatment services scheme, DTSS, provides dental care free of charge to medical card holders aged 16 and over. Services available annually and on demand include an examination, including preventative advice, two fillings, emergency extractions and a scale and polish. More complex care, such as dentures and a broader range of treatments for patients with additional needs and high-risk patients, are available subject to the approval of the local HSE principal dental surgeon.

In response to contractor concerns regarding the scheme, the Minister for Health approved measures from May 2022 providing for increased preventative care and increasing the fees paid to dentists for most treatment items by between 40% and 60%.

While the number of contractors of the scheme remains lower than before the pandemic, with 57 contractors on the scheme in County Galway at present, the number of treatments provided by contractors on the DTSS has increased since the new measures were introduced. In 2022, 40,580 treatments were provided at a cost of €2.23 million in County Galway. In 2023, 44,646 treatments were provided at a cost of €2.81 million. However, the Minister is aware that medical card holders in some areas continue to have difficulty accessing care. The HSE is required to support the provision of emergency care to adult medical card holders who are having difficulty accessing a local dentist.

The Government is committed to fundamentally reforming dental services, including the DTSS, through the implementation of the national oral health policy, Smile agus Sláinte. The Department is working closely with the HSE to ensure the establishment of focused structures to drive implementation of the policy. The HSE has appointed a strategic reform lead to drive policy implementation across the organisation and to move forward in 2024 with developing new services for both adults and children in line with the policy. This will include work on planning new services for medical card holders. The policy highlights the need for strategic workforce planning to ensure a sufficient number of appropriately trained oral healthcare professionals, including dentists, dental hygienists, dental nurses and other auxiliary grades. It is heartening to note that we currently have more registered dentists than ever before. There are 3,649 at present, which is an additional 177 registered dentists since March 2023. This reflects positive trends as the comparable figure in 2018 was 3,217.

The Minister supports the creation of additional capacity in higher education, including in oral healthcare. The Higher Education Authority is undertaking a process to identify a set of options for achieving this important step towards health workforce sustainability for Ireland.

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