NHS Dentistry: Recovery and Reform

Ben Everitt Excerpts

Wednesday 7th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

I thank my hon. Friend and fellow greater Lincolnshire MP for her question. In terms of the mechanics of this being delivered, the new patient premiums will come into force and patients can already look at the NHS website to see which practices have places available in their area. They can go there; they do not need to have had an existing relationship with that dental practice. We will also be setting out for constituents and Members of Parliament how, once the new premium comes in, people can get in contact and get the appointments we all want them to get.

[Ben Everitt (Milton Keynes North) (Con)]

More dentists, more appointments, more incentives for NHS work and a focus on underserved areas—this is exactly what Milton Keynes needs. I would like to thank the Secretary of State and, in particular, her dental Minister and my constituency neighbour, my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Dame Andrea Leadsom), for all the work they have done, and in particular for listening to me banging on about dentistry in Milton Keynes for so long. I seek just one more clarification, please. Will the mobile dentist vans be serving hard-to-reach rural areas, such as my beautiful market towns and villages in Milton Keynes North?

[Victoria Atkins]

I join my hon. Friend in his praise for our right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Dame Andrea Leadsom). As I say, we are having to apply strict criteria to the dental vans. We want to get them out as quickly as possible to the most underserved areas, but we do not want dental vans to be the limit of our ambitions. The idea behind them is very much to revitalise those parts of the country that do not have NHS dental practices within a reasonable distance, and we are convinced that dental vans are just one of the levers by which we will achieve that.