NHS Dentistry: South-west
Debate between Sarah Gibson and Richard Foord(1 month ago)
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Richard Foord
I agree that emergency care should not suddenly become the routine. It is there for the most critical cases, but we have not seen that, given the drying up of NHS dentistry provision in our towns and villages.
Sarah Gibson (Chippenham) (LD)
Does my hon. Friend not agree that part of the problem is that we are only talking about emergencies? The Secretary of State, in his first week in the job, talked about working hard to look at preventive medicine. That should apply to dentistry as well. Does my hon. Friend not agree that we need to look at a serious timeline for reviewing the dental contract? We cannot only talk about emergencies all the time.
Richard Foord
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. Prevention is clearly cheaper than dealing with the problems down the line. There is no better example than offering check-ups for children’s dentistry.
NHS Dentistry: Rural Areas
Debate between Sarah Gibson and Richard Foord(1 month, 1 week ago)
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Richard Foord
My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. She has mentioned ICB commissioning. I wrote to the Minister to ask whether there were set criteria for knowing where a patient is on the waiting list, and I understand that that is entirely in the gift of individual practices. Does my hon. Friend think that it ought to be for ICBs, or for NHS Devon in my case, to determine where people are on the waiting list for NHS dental care?