Innovative NHS management has seen an increase in the number of patients registering with an NHS dentist .
One area highlighted as having improved is the Hywel Dda Local Health Board which covers west Wales, where 40,000 extra patients have registered with an NHS dentist since 2006.
Welsh health minister Edwina Hart announced that dental charges in Wales were frozen for the fourth year.
Many areas had previously suffered from a shortage of NHS dentists with many towns and cities seeing hundreds queuing to register with new practices.
Ms Hart said the improvements were possible because of increased funding but she acknowledged some areas still had problems.
She said, "The latest figures show that more work is being done for the NHS by more dentists in Wales .
"Areas where access has proved difficult in the past have seen some of the greatest improvements.
"In the Hywel Dda LHB area for example, there are now over 40,000 more people accessing NHS dental care than in March 2006.
"By freezing dental charges again we are maintaining access to NHS dentistry for Welsh citizens and helping to tackle oral health inequalities."
In 2005 figures showed that less than half of the Welsh population had a dentist and in rural areas some patients had to travel over 100 miles to get NHS treatment.
Vanessa Bourne from the Patients’ Association was pleased with the improved access to dental health in Wales.
She said, "It shows what you can do with some inventive NHS management, considering how bad it was, and [how bad] the oral health of children was in some parts of Wales.
"A lot of the local health boards have put some imagination into it."
