The newly appointed primary care minister has been a strong campaigner for a new dental school in Hull.
Dame Diana Johnson, MP for Kingston upon Hull North and Cottingham, was named primary care minister, working under new health secretary Yvette Cooper, but will not be responsible for dentistry.
She was named backbencher of the year in 2018 for her work in securing a public inquiry into the NHS contaminated blood scandal.
Dame Diana has been a leading advocate for a new dental school in Hull, contributing to a debate on NHS dentistry in 2023.
She said: ‘NHS dentistry is in crisis. There is a recruitment and retention crisis, which the Government have allowed to develop and grow to the point that many of my constituents in Hull North have been left with no access to an NHS dentist.'
Dame Diana said the previous government had 'continued to drag their feet over the need for a new dental contract, for new dental schools and for expanding the number of dentists that we have in this country'.
She added: ‘What we need are more NHS dentists. We need to recruit more NHS dentists, and if we want to tackle the dental recruitment problems, we obviously need to train more NHS dentists. Years ago, the University of Hull, in partnership with the University of York… put in a joint bid for a dental school.’
‘After all the dither and delay that we have been talking about, we can correct our course today. There is plenty of existing support and the capability to deliver a high-quality training facility in the Humber area, which could directly serve one of the worst affected regions in the country, but we need the Government to step up to give us the resources and provide the funding for places.’
Alongside other local MPs, Dame Diana met with then primary care minister Neil O’Brien to discuss the new dental school, and started a petition of local residents.
The new minister also had a key role in campaigning for victims of the infected blood scandal in 2018, tabling urgent questions in Parliament. In December 2023 her campaigning led to the ‘only Commons defeat for the then government on the issue of compensation for those infected and affected’, her website states.