DENTAL THERAPISTS

Mr BIGNELL (Mawson) (15:22): My question is to the Minister for Health. How will new regulations allowing dental therapists to treat adults help to make dental care more accessible to South Australians?

The Hon. J.D. HILL (Kaurna—Minister for Health, Minister for the Southern Suburbs, Minister Assisting the Premier in the Arts) (15:22): I thank the member for Mawson for this important question and I acknowledge his great advocacy for his constituents in relation to health issues and, in particular, dental health. Yesterday, state cabinet agreed to take to Executive Council a proposal to ensure that South Australians will receive access to more affordable basic dental treatment with shorter waiting times. Changes will be made to regulations under the Dental Practice Act 2001 which will mean that, from 1 July, dentists will be able to refer adult patients to dental therapists for basic treatments such as check-ups, preventative services and fillings. These are matters that dental therapists are trained to perform.

The referring dentist will oversee all treatments, providing strong supervision of the therapists. However, this change will free up valuable dentists' time, allowing them to concentrate on more complex treatments such as root canal fillings and oral surgery. Dental therapists have been the backbone of the state's school dental service for 40 years, where they now provide check-ups, preventative services and fillings for more than 100,000 children and young people each year.

The complexity of dental treatment does not suddenly change the day a person turns 18. So, there is absolutely no technical reason why dental therapists should not be able to treat adults. These changes will mean that dental therapists can use their education, training and experience to treat adults. These changes follow 12 months of consultation with a whole range of stakeholders, including the Australian Dental Association, the Dental Board of South Australia, the Dental School at the University of Adelaide and all the relevant professional association and consumer groups.

In addition, over the next four years the state government will recruit an extra 25 dental therapists into the public dental service to provide 13,000 more dental visits a year to eligible South Australian adults. The appointment of these new dental therapists and the expanded role they will be able to play will mean thousands more treatments a year and even further waiting list reductions. These changes will also mean savings for people who see private dentists who choose to employ dental therapists, as the services of a therapist are often a less expensive option for basic dental care. While dental therapists will never take the place of dentists, dentists will now be able to identify appropriate patients, prescribe a course of treatment and then refer them to a dental therapist for a faster and more affordable treatment.

The changes are part of the state government's health workforce reform agenda, which is contained in our South Australian Health Care Plan, one of the aims of which is the creation of new roles to free up the time of highly skilled professionals, such as dentists, to care for those most in need. Since 2003 the restorative dentistry waiting list for pensioners and other low-income earners has been reduced from 49 months (then) to 18 months in April this year. The number of people on the restorative dentistry waiting list has been reduced from 82,000 in mid-2002 to 32,561 in April this year.

Let me make this clear, under the last state Liberal government people were waiting 49 months for restorative dental care—over four years. They are now waiting 18 months. That is still too long, and the reforms we are making will drive that waiting time even lower. We would be able to do even more, of course, if the opposition's colleagues in Canberra allowed the federal government to pass legislation which would provide more money for further services to pensioners. These changes aim to reduce these waiting times even further for public patients and make private dental care more accessible and affordable.