To ask the Minister of Health (i) for his assessment of the current General Dental Services contract; (ii) what plans he has to revise it; and (iii) when this process will commence.

The current NI GDS contract has been largely unchanged since the UK-wide contract of the 1990s. It is still the long term goal of my Department to develop and implement a new contract for General Dental Practitioners (GDPs), orthodontists and primary care oral surgeons in Northern Ireland.

The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on delivery of dental services cannot be underestimated. The continuing Infection Prevention and Control restrictions mean that patient footfall remains unavoidably low and there is a continued additional burden on costs. It is also likely that, with the backlog in treatment, the challenges facing us over the next 2/3 years will be different from those facing us thereafter; the post-pandemic clinical landscape is not yet known to us. These Covid-related factors create an immediate challenge for General Dental Services, over and above pre-pandemic contractual considerations.

To help address these challenges, I established the General Dental Services Rebuilding Stakeholder Group in June 2021. The aim of this group is to provide a focus and momentum to addressing the challenges facing the sector in the coming months and years. The GDS Rebuilding Stakeholder Group has met on two occasions to date with further meeting dates confirmed. My Department will continue to work with the Health and Social Care Board and the British Dental Association representatives through this group to secure the immediate and longer term future of Health Service dentistry for patients.

Given the ongoing pandemic and the impact on dental service delivery, my Department is focussed on addressing these difficulties at this time.