Places on the final part of a dentistry exam will increase from 180 to 1,800 (Image: Getty)
Almost two thousand more dentists from abroad are set to be licensed to work in the UK, but they won’t be a burden on welfare, a minister has insisted. In a bid to increase the dental workforce, the Government on Tuesday (March 10) announced plans to expand the number of people who can take the Licence in Dental Surgery exam.
This is a test dentists trained overseas can take to work in the UK. Places on the final part of the exam will increase from 180 to 1,800 by 2028. Health minister, Stephen Kinnock, said the announcement was crucial and insisted the increase in foreign workers would not be a burden on housing, infrastructure or welfare.
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He told LBC: “They’ll be very well paid individuals. They will add a lot of value and we will, as a result, be able to get more people into dental chairs.”
Mr Kinnock said overseas qualified dentists do a disproportionate amount of NHS work compared to others, adding: “So I think this is going to be good news for NHS dentistry and there is plenty of scope and space in the dentistry market to bring more dentists onto the front line.”
The minister said 50 extra places on dentistry courses will be available annually for “homegrown talent”.
But the British Dental Association (BDA) warned immigration rule changes would make it harder for dentists from abroad to stay in the UK for the long term.
Eddie Crouch, who chairs the BDA, said the seismic change to the dental workforce felt like a quick fix.
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He said: “This is a radical break from approaches taken to every other health profession. More new dentists will come through this pipeline than will graduate from UK dental schools.
“These dentists will need wrap-around support to enable them to deliver NHS care. We certainly don’t have an immigration policy that offers real certainty they can build a future here.
“But ultimately, it doesn’t matter whether a dentist qualifies in Manchester or Mumbai. We won’t keep talent working within a failed, underfunded NHS system without real change.”
Neil Carmichael, Executive Chair at Association Dental Groups, said the move would see more dentists coming through the system.
He added: “Last summer, we highlighted that dentists from overseas were working in McDonald’s flipping burgers because they couldn’t register to take the dentist examinations.
“We have been frustrated by the absurdity of having a massive gap in the dental workforce on one hand, and yet a backlog of thousands of trained dentists from overseas ready to be deployed if they could only register, on the other hand.
“This is a fantastic example of making good use of the ‘low-hanging fruit’ solution.”
This story originally appeared on Express.co.uk
