NHS Dentistry

Debate between Victoria Atkins and Wera Hobhouse

Tuesday 9th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend. His intervention shows the level of detail that colleagues on the Conservative Benches have gone into in trying to address the understandable concerns that local NHS providers are voicing. I will look into that. I am very keen on my three words: faster, simpler, fairer. I want to make it as simple as possible for dentists to rejoin and join the NHS. I will say more on that later.

The choice of whether patients are offered NHS exams and treatment lies with the dentists, who are independent contractors to the NHS. As well as making simple, common-sense changes, in July 2022 we announced a package of far-reaching reforms to make NHS work more attractive to dentists. We have created more bands for units of dental activity, so that dentists are properly rewarded for taking on more complex care, and the best-performing practices can see more NHS patients.

Previously, regardless of the amount of time the dentist took on each patient, they received the same payment for every individual treatment package in band 2, which covers fillings and tooth extraction. Perversely, that meant they received the same payment for doing one filling as for three. That left many dentists unable to afford to take on patients who had not seen a dentist for some time and therefore needed extensive treatment. That needed to be put right for the sake of both patients and dentists. Thanks to our reforms, dentists now receive five units of dental activity when they treat three or more teeth, which is a significant increase from the old maximum of three. Root canal treatment on molar teeth is now rewarded with seven units of dental activity, as opposed to three, meeting one of the British Dental Association’s key demands.

We also recognise the barriers that too many communities have faced when accessing NHS dentistry, with people left phoning around practices to see who was taking on NHS patients. That is why we have made it a contractual requirement for dentists to update the NHS website regularly, making it clear whether their practices are taking on new patients, as well as explaining the services that they offer, thus making it easier for patients to find a dentist that can deliver the care they need. These reforms have improved access to dentistry and ensured that the system better supports dentists and their teams, so they were well received by dentists, their representatives and patient groups across England, with Healthwatch’s national director recognising that these reforms show that the Government are listening to patients and taking action, and these reforms can help ensure that dental care is accessible and affordable to everyone who needs it.

[Wera Hobhouse]

I am pleased to hear about some of the reforms that we have raised in this Chamber many times, particularly on changing the dental contracts and units of dental activity, but may I raise another point? In official workplace data, dentists who do just one NHS check-up a year are counted the same as an NHS full-timer. Does the Secretary of State recognise that that is a problem, because that workplace data hides the scale of the problem?

[Victoria Atkins]

I am extremely grateful to the hon. Lady, who makes a fair point about measuring within the system how much work NHS dentists are doing. As I say, we are looking at all of this in the work that we are doing on the dentistry recovery plan. I repeat that I want to make it as simple as possible for dentists to register with the NHS, to continue offering the care that we all want them to, so I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her intervention.

Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls

Debate between Victoria Atkins and Wera Hobhouse

Wednesday 2nd March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

If I may, I will develop that point in my speech. As the right hon. Lady knows, an enormous amount of work is going on, particularly in the rape review, and I want to take the House through it in detail. She is absolutely right that there is action now, this day, to tackle these crimes and behaviours, but we must acknowledge—as, in fairness, colleagues across the House have acknowledged throughout our domestic abuse debates and so on—that there are real, fundamental problems that we have to tackle at a societal level so that women and girls know we agree that this behaviour is not their fault, is not their responsibility and must be tackled.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

We talk about wider societal change and bringing young people up with proper relationship training. I was a secondary school teacher; that sort of relationship training is done at the end of the day by maths teachers or foreign language teachers. Does the Minister believe that we need professionals to lead it? We cannot leave it to schools to pick up the pieces any more.

[Victoria Atkins]

May I say that there has been progress since the hon. Lady has been in her place? I very much hope that she welcomes the progress that we have made. Importantly, there is now a statutory requirement and, what is more, there is specific training to help to roll it out. We take her point that it has to be done in a way that is appropriate and sensitive but also effective, so we get the messages through to children at the right stage and the right time in their lives.

There is one way in which every single person in this Chamber can help and do something today. When hon. Members leave the Chamber, will they please share the “Enough” campaign across their many social media networks? Not only are we bombarding social media, but over the weeks to come we will have adverts cropping up across our towns and cities on buses, billboards, television and so on. This is how, individually, we can make a real difference today.

Racist Abuse on Social Media

Debate between Victoria Atkins and Wera Hobhouse

Wednesday 14th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

Very much so. My challenge to these tech companies is, “Look: you have some of the brightest brains in the world. You recruit from the top universities. You pay—I imagine—handsomely. Use those brilliant brains to do some good and to stop this abuse on your platforms.”

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

The whole England team have been remarkable in opposing racism and championing justice and equality for all. Sadly, they have not had the full support of this Government. It is up to all of us with a public platform, including the Home Secretary, to personally confront racism in all its forms and give our full support to those who are working against it. The Home Secretary is not here today, so I cannot ask her personally, but will the Minister add her support to the petition to ban racists for life from all football matches in England, which now has more than 1 million signatories?

[Victoria Atkins]

I do not know whether the hon. Lady was in the Chamber at the beginning of this urgent question when I explained that the Home Secretary is hosting a meeting—a long-standing meeting—with charities that work with survivors of violence against women and girls. I hope that the House will understand.

On the hon. Lady’s general allegations, I am minded to point out that the Home Secretary herself receives extraordinary levels of online hatred. Some of the things that she—and, in fairness, others across this House—have to deal with are eye-watering. I urge hon. Members to join together with us in tackling this racism.

On the petition, the hon. Lady may have missed the Prime Minister’s answer at Prime Minister’s questions. We are going even better than the petition, because we are looking urgently at football banning orders to ensure that people who express these racist views are stopped from going to our matches entirely.

Domestic Abuse and Hidden Harms during Lockdown

Debate between Victoria Atkins and Wera Hobhouse

Thursday 14th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising that really important point. The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, which is advising the Government on the ways in which the vaccination programme should be rolled out, has focused on the highest clinical need priority groups, which include residents in care homes and healthcare workers. Once that phase is completed—we hope and expect by mid-February—we will look at the next roll-out phase.

My hon. Friend will know that there are many categories of profession, including those who work in refuge charities but also police officers, teachers and others, where great arguments will be made as to their exposure to the public and the risk of infection. I very much take her urging on board, and we will, I am sure, in due course consider her points and others in this regard.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD) [V]]

As the chair of the all-party parliamentary group for the prevention of adverse childhood experiences, I am incredibly worried about the long-term consequences of covid and the increase in domestic abuse for a large number of children. There will be no short-term fixes. Will the Minister work with the APPG to embed widespread trauma-informed services across the country?

[Victoria Atkins]

Yes, I most certainly will. Again, I refer to the contribution made by my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom), who is already preparing work on the effects of adverse experiences in the early years of a child’s life. Our understanding is improving as to, for example, the effect that living in an abusive household can have on a child’s life chances.

In my work on tackling serious violence, we are very clear about the theme of violence in the home being very common for those who commit violence outside the home. There are many reasons why this work is invaluable, and I look forward to working with the hon. Lady and the APPG on this.