Cian O'Callaghan
Question:299. Deputy Cian O'Callaghan asked the Minister for Health the number of dentists practising in the State, broken down by CHO area; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [6697/24]
View answerWednesday, 14 February 2024
Questions (299)
Written answers
It is extremely heartening to note that we currently have more registered dentists in Ireland than ever before – 3,654 at present, which is an additional 182 registered dentists since March 2023. This reflects positive trends, with the comparative figure being 3,217 in 2018.
The Dental Council is required to record an address for each registrant. However, the Council has advised that current legislation does not allow them to stipulate that this must be a practice address.
Accordingly, this means that a significant amount of the addresses on the register are registrants home addresses.
Notwithstanding this issue, the Council have informed the Department that they are aware that there are a large number of dentists that work in multiple practices, and these can often be in more than one County.
In terms of the number of dentists practising, this is currently based on estimated figures. As per the Dental Council’s data Ireland has approximately 73.08 registered dentists per 100,000 population. The Department is liaising with the Dental Council with a view to reforming its ‘Register of Dentists’ to collect more accurate and reliable data.
The HSE has confirmed that for December 2023 there were 816 whole time equivalents working in the Public Dental Service across all grades, including 251 dentist whole time equivalents.
Efforts are ongoing within the HSE to address any current vacancies. A number of CHOs have run competitions for dentists, dental nurses and dental hygienists to fill vacancies, with panels created from the recruitment competitions. These positions are available for any person who meets the required eligibility criteria to apply.
The HSE National Oral Health Office works with the HSE National HR, Recruitment Reform and Resourcing Programme on identifying any resourcing challenges that may be experienced by the dental and oral health professions.
These are all important measures to ensure adequate staffing of our services for patients today. In tandem we are also investing in fundamental reform of our healthcare services for the future, through implementation of the National Oral Health Policy. The policy provides a framework and a set of action areas, including strategic workforce planning, to comprehensively reform oral healthcare service design and delivery.