'Urgently needed' dentistry school plans face delay

Plans for an "urgently needed" dentistry school could be delayed by at least a year because the government will not approve it until after this year's deadline for registering new courses.

The University of East Anglia (UEA) in Norwich is hoping to start a new dentistry course in September 2026 after securing the necessary funding and winning approval for its business case from the government.

But ministers now say the school cannot be given the go ahead until the spending review in June - a month after the Office for Students' (OfS) deadline for registering new courses.

The UEA said it would "continue to make the case to the government".

There has been a long campaign for a dentistry school at the UEA, which supporters say would go a long way to solving the dental crisis in the region.

Norfolk and Waveney is widely known as a "dental desert" due to challenges in accessing NHS treatment.

MPs and members of the House of Lords have been lobbying the government to bring forward the announcement for the school.

But the dental minister told parliament on Tuesday that a decision could only be made when the spending review had been drawn up.

Every year the government writes to the OfS to tell it how many dentistry places it can afford to fund.

The OfS starts a bidding process which allows dental schools to apply to be allocated new places. It also tells students where courses are available.

But the deadline for this to happen is understood to be 2 May.

Meanwhile, the government's spending review, which works out what it can afford to fund for the next five years, is not planning to report until June.

Having realised this, the BBC understands the UEA had been quietly lobbying MPs and peers from the region and meeting with government ministers.

In the House of Commons on Tuesday, the Conservative MP for North West Norfolk, James Wild, asked the dental minister to enable the OfS to allocate new dental training places in the east of England to start in 2026.

But Stephen Kinnock replied: "I have made it clear, that in principle, we support any creation of new teaching capacity for dentistry.

"[But] before we can give an instruction to the Office for Students to go ahead with that work we have to have the settlement of the comprehensive spending review so we know what our financial envelope is. We will not have that until June."

Wild later told the BBC: "There is an urgent need for dental training in Norfolk so ministers should confirm they will enable the OFS to allocate new training places.

"I will continue to press the case given the importance of courses being offered next year."

The UEA may be able to get onto the UCAS list after it is approved in the summer - but sources say that many students will have already made up their minds by then.

Conservative peer, Lord John Fuller, said he had been writing to, and meeting with, ministers "so that a 12-month delay to fixing our dental desert can be avoided".

"The case for funding is unarguable. The money has been raised. Avoidable delays are unacceptable," he added.

The UEA said it remained committed to offering undergraduate dentistry training "at the earliest opportunity".

"We're working across party lines and with all levels of Government to start a course in September 2026," a spokesperson said.

"We will continue to push for the allocation of training places and we will continue to make the case to the Government of the urgent clinical need for this in our region."

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