Will we have enough hygienists?

This paper reports a survey of dental hygienist numbers in Canada, Japan, the USA and Western Europe.The results indicate that although the combined populations of Canada, Japan and the USA and the total number of dentists working in these three countries are broadly similar to those in the 18 member states of the European Economic Area (EEA), there are over 15 times as many dental hygienists in the three countries than in the EEA.Fewer than 10,000 dental hygienists worked in EEA member states other than the UK.The potential for the UK to recruit large numbers of hygienists from the EEA is therefore extremely poor.