Dame Caroline Dinenage, Member of Parliament for Gosport, has called on the Government to support the University of Portsmouth’s Dental School by allocating newly funded dental places to where they are needed most.

Caroline has supported the University of Portsmouth to acquire dental school status since writing to the Department of Health and Social Care in November 2024 and the Privy Council in March 2025. Dental School Status was achieved in August 2025.

The Portsmouth area is a dental desert with fewer than 100 NHS dentists serving a population of over 200,000. The University of Portsmouth is already contributing to the provision of dental services in the region by treating over 5000 patients each year.

Now Health Minister Stephen Kinnock has written to Caroline to thank her for her campaign and notify her that the Office for Students, a non-Departmental public body accountable to Parliament, has been asked by the Government to prioritise new dental schools when deciding on the final allocation of 50 new dental school places.

Writing to Caroline, Stephen Kinnock, Minister of State for Care, said: “Access to NHS dentistry remains challenging in many communities, particularly in rural and coastal areas. Strengthening the workforce is crucial to improving access and tackling geographic disparities. Evidence indicates that students tend to train near where they live and subsequently practise near where they trained.

“Given your longstanding campaigning to improve access to NHS dentistry for the people of Gosport, I am pleased to let you know that we are asking the OfS to prioritise this expansion for new dental schools approved by the General Dental Council (GDC) that do not currently receive government funding for places. We are asking the OfS to facilitate this to ensure that new providers can recruit a sustainable first cohort of home-fee students, and to align the expansion with local NHS workforce needs.”

Highlighting the impact of local training on improving access to NHS dentistry, Caroline said: “People in Gosport often struggle to see an NHS dentist despite some innovative local solutions like the mobile dental vans. More training places at Portsmouth University’s state of the art dental school would mean students training locally, putting down roots and potentially opening practices here. I’m calling on the Government to recognise the Portsmouth area’s dental desert status and allocate a fair proportion of new places there.”

Executive Dean of the University of Portsmouth’s Faculty of Science and Health, Professor Richard Thelwell, said: “We very much welcome the news that the government will increase the number of dental school places for UK home students by 50 from 2027. This is an important step to ensuring that the UK’s dental workforce receives the much-needed supply of trained and qualified practitioners.

“Earlier this year the University of Portsmouth was awarded Dental Authority Status and, building on our twenty-year history of supporting dental training in our region, we are well placed to educate and train these additional dentists to meet the future NHS dental workforce needs. We will be submitting a comprehensive bid for this allocation and believe that, due to the prioritisation of new dental schools, coastal communities, and areas classed as ‘dental deserts’, we will receive our fair share of these numbers here in the Portsmouth area.

“When we receive this allocation, our plan is to recruit local students keen on a career in dentistry to study on our new and exciting training programme utilising the latest modern simulation equipment and clinical facilities. Local students training in their local area and region will go a long way to addressing the poor provision of such services in a part of the country classed as a dental desert and ensuring that these students are retained in the area after qualifying. This is an exciting development in UK dentistry and the University of Portsmouth is looking forward to rising to the challenge.”