Mydentist “committed” to Welshpool

Concerns this week that Mydentist was considering its Welshpool future have been dismissed by the company.

Chatter reached our newsdesk that patients were being told that the practice was struggling to recruit dentists to Welshpool, and that it was considering its long-term future.

But this has been strongly denied by the company, that operates around 550 practices across the UK, serving over 4 million patients.

“We remain committed to providing dental care in Welshpool,” a spokesperson for mydentist said, admitting that recruitment was impacting the business.

“In common with dental practices across the UK, however, our practice is operating at full NHS capacity due to a severe shortage of NHS dentists and unprecedented patient demand.

“We continue to work hard to recruit new dentists to increase our NHS capacity in the future.”

By coincidence, today in the Senedd, the Welsh Liberal Democrats urged the Welsh Government to adopt a centralised national health data system to help obtain a clearer picture of the state of dentistry care in Wales.

According to the Health and Social Care Committee last February, only a handful of health boards have developed their own list system. Such as Cardiff and Vale who had 15,500 patients waiting an average time of 26 months as of October 2022.

The same committee reported that there is an issue with patients registering on multiple practice waiting lists, leading to duplicate entries, and wasted time contacting patients already seen elsewhere.

The Lib Dems claim that the Welsh Government had previously promised to deliver a centralised system by the end of the 2023 financial year, however this deadline has now passed with no further updates being made available.