The Member of the Senedd (MS) for Arfon commissioned research from Lafan Consulting, which has built the case for establishing a dental school as part of Bangor University. The school is a part of Siân’s wider vision to turn Bangor into a centre of national excellence for medical education.
The launch featured testimonials from university figures, the local health board, a first-year dental student at Cardiff University, and the consulting company that carried out the research. It was attended by dentists, academics, leading figures from healthcare in north Wales and politicians.
Siân said her calls for a dental school in Bangor arose from a growing dental crisis and that so many of her constituents can’t access services.
Siân said, “Individuals and children who wish to see a dentist for treatment or an examination under the NHS find that to be an almost impossible task in the Arfon constituency. I am inundated with cases of constituents failing to access services.
“The lack of NHS provision means that an increasing number of people and children are suffering unnecessary pain, turning to inappropriate methods of pain relief, and in the most serious cases turn to the emergency departments of our hospitals for help, creating a work and financial burden that could be avoided by preventing the problem from developing in the first place, or at least starting the treatment in a timely manner.”
The MS hopes to use the report’s findings to put pressure on the Welsh government to start training dentists at Bangor University.
Siân said, “The situation is poor across Wales, but evidence shows that the problem of patients not being able to access an NHS dentist is even worse in the North Wales health board area. My argument is that here in the north, at Bangor University, a new dental school should be established for the whole of Wales.
“As well as providing more dentists with a proportion likely to remain in the local area, the Bangor Dental School would be an important addition to the city’s role as a centre of excellence in health training which includes the new North Wales Medical School which I campaigned for successfully. In turn, this would strengthen the economy in Bangor by creating new high-quality jobs.”
She concluded, “There are many benefits for the whole of Wales from the establishment of a dental school in Bangor and to evidence this, I commissioned this report from the independent research company Lafan, and the impressive conclusions are published here.
“I will shortly be launching a petition that local people can sign to show their support.”