Region's first dental school moves a step closer

Plans for the region's first dental school have moved a step closer with the government announcing the creation of an extra 50 undergraduate dentistry places per year.

It has told the Office for Students, which is expected to announce allocations in April, to prioritise so called "dental deserts" that do not currently train dentists.

The University of East Anglia (UEA) in Norwich has already had its plans for a dentistry course approved and will now be able to apply for the new places.

Labour MP for Norwich North Alice MacDonald said the school was now "closer than ever before", while North West Norfolk's Conservative MP James Wild called it a "significant opportunity" for the UEA.

The government said this was the first sustained expansion of dental school places in nearly two decades.

It also announced plans to make it easier for overseas-trained dentists to join the Dental Council's register, something that could add as many as 2,400 more dentists to the workforce by 2029.

The Health and Care minister Stephen Kinnock said: "Training more dentists and allowing greater numbers of those qualified overseas to practise will put more patients in dental chairs, receiving care when they need it most."

UEA vice chancellor Professor David Maguire said: "Our plans are ready and our NHS partnerships established. If places can be allocated swiftly, we can begin training in September 2027."

Ministers see the creation of a dental school in the East of England as an important move in tackling the shortage of dentists in the region.

There are currently 16 schools in the UK, the nearest to the East being in London and Birmingham.

Anecdotal evidence suggests dental graduates end up working close to where they studied.

It had been hoped the school could open this year but the plans were held up by the government's spending review, which meant the health department missed the deadline to authorise extra places for 2027.

For some years the East of England has been seen as one of the hardest places to find an NHS dentist, with numerous stories of patients having to travel long distances for treatment and some even pulling out their own teeth.

The health secretary once described the region as "the Sahara of dental deserts".

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