The Irish Government must address the crisis in care and workforce

The Irish Dental Association (IDA) has sounded the alarm over what it describes as a crisis in dental care access and workforce supply in its latest budget submission to the Irish Government. The IDA’s appeal highlights significant challenges faced by both public and private dentistry sectors, emphasising the dire situation for vulnerable members of the community.

In its submission, the IDA paints a bleak picture of the current state of dental care in Ireland. The Association notes that accessing dental care has become increasingly difficult for many people, particularly for vulnerable groups, due to both funding shortfalls and a lack of sufficient staffing. The recruitment and retention of dentists in the Health Service Executive’s (HSE) public dental service is “in crisis”. This has resulted in a severe shortage of dentists available to provide necessary care, exacerbating the challenges already faced by the public sector.

To address these issues, the IDA has laid out four priority areas in its submission, which it believes are crucial for the future of dental care in Ireland.

1. Mandating Continuous Professional Development (CPD) for dentists: The IDA has called for legislative changes to mandate continuous professional development (CPD) for dentists. Currently, CPD is not required for dental practitioners, unlike in other health professions such as medicine and nursing. The IDA argues that implementing mandatory CPD is essential to maintain high standards of patient care and safety. According to the IDA, this change could be made at no cost to the state by simply amending the Health Bill.

2. Increasing public dental service staffing: The IDA is urging the government to immediately allocate funding for the recruitment of at least 75 dentists into the public dental service to restore staffing levels to those of 2009. The Association points out that even this increase would merely bring staffing back to levels from over a decade ago. To begin to address the backlog of public patients awaiting care, the IDA suggests that more than 100 new dentists would be needed. The shortage of public dental service providers has led to significant unmet needs, including more than 100,000 primary school students who missed out on vital dental screenings last year alone.

3. Sustainable funding for dental education: Highlighting the critical role of dental schools in training future professionals, the IDA warns that these institutions are currently operating at full capacity and cannot meet the growing demand for dental services. The current reliance on higher fees for foreign students to subsidise Irish dental schools underscores the need for a more sustainable funding model. The IDA also expressed disappointment over the cancellation of plans for a new dental school at University College Cork (UCC), which it says reflects a troubling perception of dentistry as a “second-tier” health service. This cancellation, according to the IDA, will only exacerbate the shortage of dentists as Ireland’s population approaches seven million.

4. Restoring funding to medical card and dental schemes: The IDA highlights the severe cuts to medical card and dental schemes since 2009, which have resulted in an estimated loss of €855 million in funding. The Association stresses that, had funding levels been maintained, these schemes could have significantly improved oral health outcomes for Irish medical card patients. The IDA calls for immediate action to restore funding to these programmes to address the growing oral health needs of the population.

The IDA has proposed a multi-year funding plan to address these long-standing issues, stating that this approach is necessary to cover the costs of overdue reforms and address workforce capacity problems. The submission underscores that tackling each of these challenges individually would be difficult, but collectively, they reveal the depth of the crisis facing Irish dentistry.

Its budget submission serves as a stark warning to policymakers about the urgent need to invest in dental care and education to prevent further decline in dental health services across the country. The Association’s recommendations aim to ensure that all members of the community, especially the most vulnerable, have access to adequate dental care and that the workforce is sufficiently equipped and trained to meet the growing demand for services.

As the government reviews this submission, the future of Ireland’s dental care system hangs in the balance, with calls from the IDA to take immediate and decisive action to prevent a deepening crisis.

Will Peakin editor@irelandsdentalmag.ie, Follow Ireland’s Dental on Social media @IrelandsDental.

Tags: CPD, funding, Government, IDA