Oral Answers to Questions

Tom Hunt Excerpts

Tuesday 19th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right to raise this issue, and the whole House heard just before the recess the results of the independent work done by Donna Ockenden. The hon. Lady is right to talk about that and the pressure that has been faced locally. I understand that she has already reached out to my hon. Friend the Minister for Health and that he will be meeting her to discuss just that.

[Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)]

3. What steps his Department is taking to tackle the backlog in NHS dentistry appointments.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Maria Caulfield)]

The dental activity threshold has recently been raised to 95% of usual activity. That is another quarter-on-quarter increase to get us towards 100% of pre-pandemic activity. I fully recognise, though, that access to NHS dentistry before the pandemic was patchy and that the crux of the problem is the current NHS dental contract, so work is under way to reform that contract. As negotiations have started, I am limited in what further I can say, but I will update the House as soon as possible.

[Tom Hunt]

A number of my constituents are finding it impossible to access NHS dental care. They include Alison, one of my constituents who worked as a midwife in Ipswich Hospital for 40 years. Some of them have contacted 40 different practices and have not got anywhere. My understanding is that there has been a 30% drop in the number of dentists taking on NHS work in Suffolk. Will the Minister explain what local work is going on between the Department and the local NHS bodies to try to ensure that this issue is addressed?

[Maria Caulfield]

My hon. Friend is quite right in his question and is campaigning hard to increase dental activity in his constituency. One of the key pieces of work is being done through Health Education England, which set out a range of recommendations in its “Advancing Dental Care” review. That will do a number of things, such as increase the skill mix and scope of practitioners across dental teams, and we may well require legislation to bring some of that work forward. Health Education England is also introducing more flexible routes into dental training and doing some workforce modelling to identify the parts of the country with the biggest gaps in provision, so that we can establish centres of dental development in those areas. I will look at Ipswich in particular.