AQW 9004/22-27


Mrs Ciara Ferguson
Sinn Féin
Foyle


Tabled Date: 15/03/2024
Answered On Date: 03/04/2024
Priority Written: No


Question:
To ask the Minister of Health to detail the number of dental practices that provide health service dentistry, broken down by constituency.


Answer:
There were 364 General Dental Practices across Northern Ireland at 31st December 2023, the latest publicly available quarterly Accredited Official Statistics.
The number of General Dental Practices broken down by Assembly Area is detailed in Table 1 overleaf. Information is only available for those dental practices and dentists who have made arrangements with the SPPG (previously HSCB) to provide health service dentistry. Information is not held in relation to dental practices that are wholly private.
Table 1: Number of General Dental Practices by Assembly Area at 31st December 2023
Assembly Area
Dental Practices1,2
Belfast East
20
Belfast North
27
Belfast South
33
Belfast West
19
East Antrim
16
East Londonderry
17
Fermanagh and South Tyrone
24
Foyle
20
Lagan Valley
19
Mid Ulster
15
Newry and Armagh
29
North Antrim
26
North Down
19
South Antrim
11
South Down
20
Strangford
13
Upper Bann
20
West Tyrone
16
Northern Ireland
364
Source: Family Practitioner Services Dental Payment System, Business Services Organisation
1 Active dental surgeries at the 31st December 2023; an active surgery is one which can be linked to having had at least 1 active dentist, who has made an arrangement with the SPPG (previously the Health and Social Care Board) to provide health service dentistry, registered to that surgery i.e. the dentist’s start date was before the time period in question and finish date was after this point or currently still open.
2 Dental Practices includes a number of Orthodontic and Specialist Practices. Orthodontics is a specialist area of dentistry concerned with the growth and development of the teeth and jaws and the prevention and treatment of abnormalities of this development. Therefore, most patients are children. These practices do not typically have registered patient lists, with instead patients normally seen on referral from a GDS dental practice.