A NEW dental practice is expected to open in Neath early next year and serve around 5,500 patients.
It follows the termination of an NHS dental contract last year in what was one of a small number of contract terminations in Swansea and Neath Port Talbot, according to a Swansea Bay University Health Board report.
Major changes to NHS dental contracts came into force in Wales on April 1. The former Welsh Government believed the previous “unit of dental activity” model incentivised treatments over prevention and limited access for new patients.
The new model places a greater focus on prevention and aims to improve access for patients but it has proved contentious with a small number of dental practices handing back NHS contracts and offering private care only.
Swansea Bay University Health Board members were given an update at a meeting about how things were going and there were concerns about letters sent to patients by practices encouraging them to sign up to private plans.
Independent board member Reena Owen said a practice near where she lived had handed back its NHS contract and she was worried patients would have to travel some distance to a new one or feel they’d have to pay for private treatment.
“I did see a letter that somebody had received from the practice that frankly didn’t really explain that NHS services would be available still to them,” she said. “The fact was they were asking people to sign up to a paid arrangement per month.”
Craige Wilson, interim director for primary and community care, said he was aware of this. He said: “We have actually had to take action against some of the practices in terms of the communication they have actually put out to their patients encouraging them onto private plans rather than giving them that [NHS] information.”
Under the new system unregistered patients need to sign up to a dental access portal – unless it’s an emergency – rather than ringing around individual dental practices. They are then allocated a practice by their health board. Patients already registered at an NHS dental practice should liaise with that practice for routine and emergency appointments.
Mr Wilson said the contract reforms were the biggest change to NHS dentistry in 20 years and around 18,000 patients in Swansea and Neath Port Talbot had signed up to the dental access portal. Many of them had been allocated a practice leaving a waiting list of 4,000 to 4,500. “I think the biggest concern is going to be: ‘Will we run out of patients?’” he said, adding that measures were being looked at to better publicise the portal.
Mr Wilson said the changes hadn’t been “universally accepted by certain parts of the dental hierarchy” and some patients who’d been allocated places via the new portal hadn’t taken them up.
But the early indications were, he said, that the new system “has been accepted positively” now it was in place.
The health board report said there had been four contract terminations by dental practices affecting around 13,700 patients and Mr Wilson said a cautious approach was being taken for now about recommissioning them.
However the report said a new contract had been awarded following a contract termination in 2025 which will result in a new dental practice in Neath town centre. It’s scheduled to open in early 2027.
The report added that a procurement process was also due to start for another potential NHS contract which could serve around 8,000 patients although it didn’t say where in Swansea Bay.
The British Dental Association, which represents dentists, has previously raised concerns that the contract changes were, in its view, untested, poorly communicated with the profession and patients, and that some existing patients would have to wait longer for routine check-ups.
