NHS Dentistry

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Wednesday 19th March 2025 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Young of Cookham]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to improve access to NHS dentistry.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Baroness Merron) (Lab)]

My Lords, we are tackling the challenges for patients trying to access NHS dental care by providing 700,000 more urgent dental appointments per year, with integrated care boards delivering those extra appointments from 1 April 2025, which is not long away. We will recruit new dentists to the areas that need them most and to rebuild dentistry in the long term we will reform the dental contract with the sector and shift to focus on prevention and the retention of NHS dentists.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

I very much welcome the 700,000 extra appointments, which will begin to make an impact on the 2.2 million people who now need urgent care, but did the noble Baroness read the leader in the Times on Monday which said

“the scandal of NHS dentistry has dogged successive governments without resolution”?

It mentioned the 30,000 children each year who go to hospital to have rotten teeth extracted under anaesthetic and the 18 million adults and children who cannot access an NHS dentist. Does she agree that at the root of this problem is the 2006 dental contract, which has driven dentists out of the profession? When might a new contract be introduced? Given that the most effective public health measure is to add fluoride to the water supply where it does not exist naturally, when will she roll out the programme that has begun in the north-east?