Oral Answers to Questions

Vikki Slade Excerpts

Tuesday 11th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Kinnock]

I wish my hon. Friend all the best with his efforts to get that dental school up and running. As for the need for serious reform, there is no perfect payment system, but we have to get a payment system in place that makes NHS dentistry attractive—at least as attractive as doing work in the private sector. We are working at pace on that, and I will report back on that as rapidly as possible.

[Vikki Slade (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)]

T10. Some 44,066 children—one in six—are waiting more than a year for medical treatment, compared with one in 100 adults. Waits are at their worst in community medicine. In Dorset, there are waits of up to two years in child development, and delays of a year are normal for child and adolescent mental health services. Fifty-three per cent of all community health referrals take more than a year. Will the Minister confirm whether the 18-week target will apply to community referrals and not just hospitals? If not, when can we expect a target, so that children are not badly affected?

[Wes Streeting]

The hon. Member is absolutely right to put the spotlight on paediatric health. Mental health is important for children and young people, but physical health is too. This Government are committed to dramatically reducing waiting lists and returning to the 18-week standard by the end of this Parliament, but we should aim to go even harder after those childhood waiting lists, because many children waiting in pain and agony are losing valuable years of their childhood that they will never get back.