The University of Plymouth’s Peninsula Dental Social Enterprise (PDSE) is working to set up the new practice with a £4m capital investment.
The project has been driven forward with support from the Plymouth Dental Taskforce, which was set up in May 2023. It marks the culmination of six years of joint working between PDSE and Plymouth City Council.
The council has worked closely with PDSE to help them find an accessible and appropriate location for the practice. The current intention is for it to be based in a council-owned key city centre location, where clinicians will provide much-needed access to dental care.
The location has not been announced yet.
The council had planned not to announce they were one step closer until the location was finalised.
The news was published early, so the council has sought to clarify the project’s status.
Urgent treatment will be delivered by an innovative combination of qualified dentists and undergraduate students on placement from the University of Plymouth’s Peninsula Dental School. New postgraduate training opportunities will also help retain dental professionals in the city and wider South West region.
It is anticipated that the practice will open in late 2025, subject to planning and approvals.
Mary Aspinall, a councillor and cabinet member for health and adult social care and chair of the taskforce, said, “It’s brilliant to see this project moving forward. Helping residents to access NHS dental treatment has been one of our key priorities. As a council, we’ve been working closely with PDSE to help make this a reality for a number of years. This has included lobbying for NHS funding through the Dental Taskforce and helping to find a suitable city centre location.
“Once open, this new dental practice will make a huge difference by ensuring thousands more people living in the city can access the NHS dental care that they deserve.”
The Plymouth Dental Taskforce was created in 2023 to address the city's growing dental crisis. The group includes representatives from Plymouth City Council, NHS Devon, Peninsula Dental Social Enterprise (PDSE), Livewell Southwest, MPs, and University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust.
With more than 22,000 Plymouth residents currently on the waiting list for an NHS dentist, the Taskforce has agreed to focus on three key priorities. The first is to help deliver a new PDSE dental facility in the city centre.
The Taskforce will also focus on obtaining additional funding to enhance preventative measures that help to protect residents’ oral health, and using the annual NHS dental underspend to commission new services for people with the highest needs.