To ask the Minister of Health to detail the number of dental practices offering NHS services in East Londonderry in the last five years.

The average dental practice in Northern Ireland has three dentists working in it. Individual dentists within a practice may provide only private dental care, only Health Service dental care or a mixture of the two. My Department defines a Health Service dental practice as one in which at least a single dental practitioner has made arrangements with the Strategic Planning and Performance Group (SPPG) to provide Health Service dentistry.

The table below shows the number of practices in East Londonderry in which a dentist has provided some level of NHS treatment over the last five years.

Active dental surgeries at 31st March of each year. Latest year count taken at 31st December, the latest published figures, sourced from the Accredited Official Statistics release ‘Dental Services for Northern Ireland, Quarterly Series to Q3 2024/25 - Provisional’.

Practices may include a number of Orthodontic and Specialist Practitioners. 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.

Source: Business Service Organisation, Information & Analysis Directorate, Department of Health, NI. (Provided by Laura Baird– 5 February 2025)