Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Neil O'Brien and Chris Loder

Tuesday 17th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[Neil O’Brien]

That is exactly why we have started to reform the UDA system. As well as the introduction of the first ever minimum UDA rate, which will help constituencies such as my hon. Friend’s, we have changed the rules nationally so that commissioners can take UDAs away from dentists who are underperforming and give them to those who want to do more NHS work. As a result, nearly a quarter more NHS dentistry is being done than a year ago.

[Chris Loder (West Dorset) (Con)]

16. What steps he is taking to increase access to NHS dentistry services in the south-west.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Neil O’Brien)]

In addition to the steps we are taking to drive up NHS dentistry everywhere, we are going further in the south-west, with NHSE commissioning additional urgent appointments. There are several hundred extra appointments every week.

[Chris Loder]

I thank my hon. Friend for his answer. It is not sustainable for the people of West Dorset who have needed dental care for some time when there is a £400 million national underspend in the dental care budget. The NHS and local dentists tell me that the incompatibility often relates to the national dental care contract, which is up for review. When does the Minister expect a solution to be found to this contract difficulty? Will he meet me and the NHS Dorset ICB to discuss the matter in detail to find a solution?

[Neil O’Brien]

Absolutely. I am keen to continue the conversation with my hon. Friend. These issues are exactly why, this summer, we legislated to allow rebasing and to end the inflexibility he describes. We are also in the process of ringfencing local dental budgets, because we do not want to see underspends. We want to see that money going to NHS dentistry.

NHS Dentists: South-West England

Debate between Neil O'Brien and Chris Loder

Wednesday 24th May 2023 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Neil O’Brien)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Elliott. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Chris Loder) on securing this incredibly important debate. Dentistry is the No. 1 issue that I am working on, and I reassure hon. Members that we are doing so at pace. We know that there are serious challenges across the country; hon. Friends and hon. Members are quite right about the scale of those challenges, which are particularly acute in the south-west.

I met the commissioners for dentistry in the south-west earlier this week. I met the professions separately, and I had further meetings about our dental plan earlier today. This is absolutely top-priority. I have been talking for some time to hon. Friends present and to south-west Members and others to generate the ideas that will go into the plan. They are the first in my mind when I think about those who are contributing important ideas to our dentistry plan, not just in their speeches today but in our conversations.

We have already started the process of reform, but it is only a start. We have created more UDA bands to reflect the fair cost of work and to incentivise NHS work. We introduced the first ever minimum UDA value to help to sustain practices where they are low, and—to address the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax)—we have allowed dentists, for the first time, to deliver 110% of their UDAs, to encourage more activity from those who want to do more NHS dentistry. We have also started the process of making it easier for dentists to come and work in the UK. Just last month, legislation came into force that enables the General Dental Council to increase capacity for the overseas registration exam. I have also met the council to discuss how we can bust the backlog that built up during covid.

Plans for the centres for dental development are emerging around the country, which is very exciting and will address the issue that colleagues have mentioned about how to encourage dentists to train and then remain in the south-west and in other areas that find it more difficult to attract dentists. We have started to empower hygienists and therapists as well, exactly as my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas) proposes. We stand ready to go further. The reforms to split band 2 and the 110% option have been well received by the profession. They are being used: the proportion of the new band 2b that is being used is going up, which is already having some effect on delivery, although of course that effect is not high enough.

In data published by NHS England this week, the proportion of contracted units of dental activity delivered went up from 85% last March to 101% this March, and the number of NHS patients seen has gone up by about a fifth over the last year, so there is progress, but there is much more to do. We will go further in the forthcoming dental plan, which I hope will be out relatively shortly.

The reforms that I have talked about and the forthcoming dental plan draw on the ideas that Members across the House have put forward today. They will build on those initial banding changes, further improve that payment model and start to take us away from the 2006 contract, which everyone agrees is broken. Exactly as my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset pointed out, that is the core of what we need to do.

We will also ensure further measures to improve access, particularly for new patients, look at how we address historical UDA variations that are not justified, improve transparency—I think my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster) made that point—and take further steps to grow the workforce, not least through the workforce plan, which we will publish very shortly. Fundamentally, we will do everything we can to make doing work for the NHS and NHS patients more attractive to dentists. At the same time—to answer the question that the Opposition Front Bencher, the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne), quite rightly asked—we will do more to encourage prevention as well.

The devolution of dentistry from the NHS regions to the individual integrated care boards at a more local level is an important improvement that we want to build on. It provides an opportunity for much closer integration with other local care services and much more accountability about what is being commissioned and delivered at the local level. People and MPs can go and see the person responsible for delivery in their area much more easily, and our dentistry plan will build on just that.

[Chris Loder]

I very much appreciate what the Minister is saying about the plan for dentistry going forward. The last time I brought up the issue was in July 2022, almost a year ago. We had these problems then, and we have them much worse now. Will the Minister share with us how some of these great initiatives, which I am pleased to hear about, will be expedited so that they can have the maximum effect as soon as possible for those who are most affected in the south-west?

[Neil O’Brien]

I feel the exact same sense of burning urgency that my hon. Friend feels. I hope our plan will be out very shortly.

Local Government Finance (England)

Debate between Neil O'Brien and Chris Loder

Wednesday 9th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Neil O'Brien)]

I begin by paying tribute to the work of councils across the country. Over the last two years, they have been our foot soldiers in the fight against covid. They have innovated, worked hard and done incredible things to keep our vital services going, and they cannot be thanked often enough. I also thank officials in central Government and the Minister for Levelling Up Communities, my hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden (Kemi Badenoch), for their work in producing this balanced settlement today. She is away following the death of her father but she has done a lot of work to bring us to this point.

I also thank Members from across the House for their thoughtful and considered contributions to the debate. I would like to take some of them in turn and, as I do so, I will highlight what the settlement will mean for their area’s spending power. My hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Chris Loder)—the spending power of his area will go up by 6.8%—made the important point that even though areas may look pretty, or “chocolate box” to use his words, we must recognise that there are areas of serious deprivation in some of them. That is one of the reasons why we are maintaining the rules over such grant. It is at the highest level—£85 million—that it has been. I know that his council leader has met with the former Minister for Housing, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tamworth (Christopher Pincher), and the letter that they sent has been replied to. I look forward to further conversations with my hon. Friend.

[Chris Loder]

I really appreciate my hon. Friend responding to these points. I should be clear for the record that I, my colleagues and the leader of the council have been asking to meet Ministers for a very long time. I appreciate my hon. Friend’s comeback, but it is important to note that we would appreciate it if the meeting were expedited. I do not think that it has taken place.

[Neil O'Brien]

I assure my hon. Friend that we will expedite that.

Let me turn to the thoughtful comments made by the Chair of the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee, the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts)—the spending power of Sheffield will go up by 7.6% under this settlement. He noted, to use his phrase, that the settlement was better than in some years, which may be faint praise, but we will take it. He raised the very important long-term issue about the relevance of upward pressure on social care caused by an ageing society, and one in which we do a better job of caring for the sick and disabled. As a party, we have taken difficult decisions to adequately fund that and the NHS, and difficult decisions on tax. We are also taking steps, as we set out in the House earlier, to promote the integration of health and social care, because we all know that is one of the crucial things we can do to make that sustainable in the longer term.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Neil O'Brien and Chris Loder

Monday 29th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Chris Loder (West Dorset) (Con)]

14. What steps he is taking to increase opportunity in Dorset.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Neil O’Brien)]

The Government are committed to levelling up the whole country, and Dorset is no exception. The new community renewal fund is investing in enterprise and skills training for young people in Dorset. The local growth fund in Dorset has contributed more than £98 million to 54 projects. We are also investing nearly £12 million into Dorset through the getting building fund to stimulate job creation and support the region’s economic recovery.

[Chris Loder]

Dorset Council has historically been very financially responsible, spending wisely according to need, but now we are facing more pressure than ever, particularly from the cost of social care and the need to provide vital rural transport links. Will my hon. Friend confirm that Dorset will get its fair share in the upcoming local government funding settlement? Will he and his Front-Bench colleagues do all they can to support any future levelling-up funding requests from Dorset?

[Neil O’Brien]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. Yes, the Government are providing approximately £1.6 billion in additional grant funding in the LGDEL— local government departmental expenditure limit— each year. That follows year-on-year real-terms increases for local government since the 2019 spending review. It will allow councils to increase spending on vital public services such as social care. We will set out more details in the upcoming provisional local government finance settlement later this year.