Dental Care: Durham

Debate between Lord Beamish and Neil O'Brien

Wednesday 24th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Neil O’Brien]

I have already read out the statistics. I will not read them out again, and I do not think there is a need to correct the record. The statistics that the hon. Lady is drawing on are incomplete, because there is effectively a two-month lag between activity and the need to report that activity. Drawing on such incomplete information does not give the full picture, so I caution her against doing so.

First, I encourage the hon. Lady to wait for the official data in the usual way. Secondly, we are looking to improve that official data by, indeed, working with and responding to concerns raised by the BDA. I do not think that headcount is a sensible measure with the workforce. There are more people doing NHS work than there were in 2010. What we are really interested in is the total amount of activity, which is best measured by the total number of UDAs being delivered. As I have said, that total amount of activity is going up. In the last month for which we have data, it had gone up from 85% in March 2022 to about 101% in March 2023, but it is still not high enough. Although the trend is positive and dentists are doing more NHS work, the point of agreement here is that that needs to improve further.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

I am sorry, but the Minister cannot have it both ways. First, the population of this country has increased since 2010 and we need to measure the number of dentists against the size of the population. The other thing is that he can talk about UDAs, but if people are in an NHS dentist desert, as is the case in Durham, it does not matter if the number has gone up elsewhere. If people do not have access to a dentist, they do not have access to a dentist and therefore cannot be treated.

[Neil O’Brien]

That point is clearly correct, but that is not to disagree with anything that I have just said.

Rather than getting into the weeds—I have already read out the official statistics—let me try to end on a note of agreement. We absolutely want to take further steps to ensure that we increase access to NHS dentistry where it is lowest and, as well as improving the service for patients right across the country and improving preventive activity, we want to see particularly rapid improvement in those areas, perhaps including that of the hon. Member for City of Durham, that have not had the level of access that we would want over recent times.

Question put and agreed to.