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The Minister for Care (Stephen Kinnock)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Dowd. I thank the hon. Member for Broadland and Fakenham (Jerome Mayhew) for securing this vital debate on dental healthcare provision in East Anglia, and I thank hon. Members on both sides of the House for their important interventions.
The debate follows hot on the heels of a debate on 3 September that my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich South (Clive Lewis) led on healthcare provision in the east of England. We know that huge swathes of the region are dental deserts. These areas are facing great pressures from challenges in the recruitment and retention of dentists, leaving patients struggling to access the NHS dental treatments that they need. As has been pointed out, it is a scandal—frankly, it is Dickensian—that the No. 1 reason for children aged five to nine to be admitted to hospital in our country in 2024 is to have rotten teeth removed.
Norfolk and Waveney integrated care board had 31.5 dentists per 100,000 of the population in 2023-24, which is the lowest number in England. That is why I have met with colleagues from the east of England, including the hon. Member for Broadland and Fakenham, to discuss the specific challenges in the region and to discuss the University of East Anglia’s plans to open a dental school. The UEA’s proposal to begin training dental students is very welcome news. As I said to all the colleagues I met recently, and to the hon. Gentleman at oral questions last month, the Government strongly encourage the UEA to continue its progress towards establishing a dental school by submitting its bid to the General Dental Council as rapidly as possible.
The independent Office for Students is another key player. It has statutory responsibility for allocating funded training places to dental schools. As the hon. Gentleman has pointed out, the OfS is independent from the Government. I cannot make specific commitments about allocating additional training places for future years, because to do so would be to cut across the independence of the OfS. The OfS makes decisions based on its own assessments, following guidance issued by Government. What I can say to the hon. Gentleman is that our guidance is influential, but I cannot guarantee its outcome.
The guidance for the 2026 academic year will be published in due course. Provided that the UEA meets those requirements, it would absolutely be considered for Government-funded dental training places. That would certainly help to retain local dentists in East Anglia. As a Member for a rural constituency, I absolutely understand how important that is to the hon. Gentleman and to the many other hon. Members present who represent his part of the country.
We also need a clear-headed diagnosis of where we are. It is beyond doubt that NHS dentistry was left in an appalling state of disrepair by the previous Government. As the Prime Minister said last week, the precious contract between the state and the British people has been broken. He rightly said that our public services are
“in crisis, unable to perform their basic functions”
and that they are
“unable to provide the timely care and dignity that Britain relies on”.
Almost five years on from the beginning of the pandemic, NHS dentistry has still not recovered to pre-pandemic levels. Only 40% of adults were seen by an NHS dentist in the 24 months to June this year, down from almost 50% before the pandemic. Although 34 million courses of dental treatment were delivered in England in 2023-24, that is down from almost 40 million courses five years ago. As I say, it is disgraceful that having rotten teeth removed is the single most common cause of hospital admissions for children aged five to nine, causing them untold pain and suffering and affecting their ability to sleep, speak and socialise.
On the subject of the general state of dentistry, I thank the National Audit Office for its recent investigation of the previous Government’s dental recovery plan. Its report lays out in black and white something that was already apparent to millions of people across the length and breadth of our country: the dental recovery plan that we inherited did not go far enough. We are reflecting on every line of the NAO report as part of our efforts to rebuild dentistry, get it back on its feet and make it fit to serve people of all ages. We have launched the largest ever national conversation to inform our 10-year plan to reform the NHS, and our workforce will play a central role, because they are key to unlocking improvements across our communities.
The golden hello scheme offers dentists £20,000 to work in underserved areas of the country for three years. The recruitment process is well under way, with posts being filled by dentists in those areas as we speak. As of 7 November, 64 posts had been advertised. Our manifesto pledged 700,000 more urgent dental appointments, and we are working to ensure that patients can start to access them as soon as possible. They will be targeted at the areas that need them most.
Strengthening the workforce is key to our ambitions, but for years dentistry has faced chronic workforce shortages. We have to be honest that bringing in the staff we need will take time. To rebuild dentistry in the long term and increase access to NHS dental care, we will reform the dental contract with a shift to focusing on prevention and the retention of NHS dentists. There are no perfect payment systems, and careful consideration needs to be given to any potential changes to the complex dental system, so that we deliver a system that is better for patients and the profession.
Adrian Ramsay
I thank the Minister for reiterating the Government’s commitment to reforming the dental contract. Please will he set out a timescale for that work commencing?
Stephen Kinnock
I was just going to say that we are continuing to meet the British Dental Association and other representatives of the dental sector to discuss how we can best deliver our shared ambition to improve access for NHS dental patients. We are working on this as a matter of urgency. I cannot give a specific timeframe, but it is a top priority for the Department.
Charlotte Cane (Ely and East Cambridgeshire) (LD)
I understand that the Government have inherited a big problem, but the situation is urgent. I have a constituent who has heart problems, so his oral health is really important to him. He cannot get an NHS dentist, so constituencies such as Ely and East Cambridgeshire need urgent action.
Stephen Kinnock
I share the hon. Lady’s belief that we need urgency and focus. We have a big mountain to climb, but we have to crack on. I completely take her point about the need for urgency.
We need to ensure that the process to register a dentist in the UK is as efficient and fast as possible, while retaining robust safeguards for patient protection. The Department regularly engages with the General Dental Council to understand what it is doing to improve the waiting times for the overseas registration exam. Earlier this year, the Department ran a consultation on introducing a further piece of legislation to give the GDC powers to provisionally register overseas qualified dentists, which will help to address some of the workforce challenges.
In summary, this is an immense challenge. There are no quick fixes or easy answers, but we will choose change, not because it is easy but because it is what we have to do. We have to do the hard yards, and I look forward to working with the hon. Member for Broadland and Fakenham and other colleagues to deliver what is needed.
Question put and agreed to.