NHS Dentistry
Debate between Will Quince and Richard Graham(2 years, 2 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Will Quince)
I thank the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) for his kind words. He will be pleased to know that, despite what he said, I scribbled my own speech today and I can confirm that it will be a fudge-free zone. In fact, I have not had any fudge for about three years and I do not intend to start now—not least because it would not be great for my teeth.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) and the hon. Member for Bradford South (Judith Cummins) on securing time for this hugely important debate. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing the time and all right hon. and hon. Members who have made constructive contributions to the debate. It would be remiss of me not to thank all those who work in NHS dentistry, not just for their work throughout the pandemic, but for the work that they continue to do serving people up and down the country.
In the relatively short time that I have available—I am conscious that there is another important debate to follow—I will endeavour to respond to as many of the points, themes and questions raised as possible. I hope that right hon. and hon. Members know me well enough already, however, to know that my door is always open. I have never turned down a meeting with a parliamentary colleague and I do not intend to start now. This is an important issue and I hope that we can continue to talk about it at length, even if not in this Chamber.
As the new Minister—or new new Minister—for primary care and therefore dentistry, I have spent the first few weeks in post learning more about NHS dentistry, including by meeting dentists; meeting people at the coalface and the grassroots is really important. Of course, I have my constituency experience too. Despite the events of today, I very much hope to be here for some time to come.
Let me say at the outset, in response to I think nearly all of the contributions made today, that I get it—I really do get it. I know that in many parts of our country access to NHS dentistry is difficult or far more difficult than it should be, and I want to make it clear that dentistry is an incredibly important part of the NHS. The Government and I are committed to addressing the challenges that NHS dentistry continues to face across the whole country, and as the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish rightly pointed out, it is in our ABCD strategy.
I turn to some of the themes raised. The first is access, which was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney, the right hon. Member for Knowsley (Sir George Howarth), my hon. Friends the Members for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford), for Gloucester (Richard Graham) and for Salisbury (John Glen), the hon. Member for Bootle (Peter Dowd) and my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby). Access to NHS dentistry varies across the country—we know that—and it was an issue, as the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish rightly pointed out, even before the pandemic, but the pandemic has exacerbated it and added further pressure to the system.
The Government are taking a number of important steps that will improve dental access for patients and make NHS dentistry a more attractive place for dentists and their teams to work in. I will outline just some of those. These changes include improvements to the current NHS dental contracts—I will come on to that in a moment—and of course to the recruitment and retention of dental professionals. I say dental professionals specifically because this is of course about far more than just dentists, as important as they are. As the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish pointed out, rightly, we have seen an additional 539 more dentists returning to NHS dentistry last year, which of course means they are able to treat more patients, but I recognise the point he rightly made, and we do need to go further and faster.
On the steps taken, notwithstanding the points made by the hon. Member for Bradford South, we made £50 million of extra funding available for NHS dental services at the end of 2021-22, which provided more appointments and increased capacity in NHS dental teams. I noted her points, and we have learned from that. Given that experience, I would certainly want to do things a little differently if we considered such a proposal again. We announced a package of improvements to the NHS dental system on 19 July, as a number of Members have pointed out, which was set out in our plan for patients. These are an important first step to system reform and are designed to improve access to dental care for patients, particularly patients with the most complex treatment needs.
A number of hon. Members raised the much criticised—and that is as far as I will go, the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish will be pleased to know—2006 contract. We are making improvements to ensure that dentists are more fairly remunerated, especially for more complex oral health needs. The one example we hear very often is of dentists getting paid the same for doing one filling as for six fillings. As numerous hon. Members have pointed out, we have also set a £23 minimum UDA value, notwithstanding the points made about the variation around the country.
My hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester raised accountability locally, including to Members of Parliament. In part the answer to that is their coming within the remit and purview of integrated care systems. I have no doubt that my hon. Friend is well aware of the chief executive of his integrated care system, and will know how to contact and meet them on a regular basis.
Richard Graham
The Minister is absolutely right: not only do we know the chief executive, but all Gloucestershire MPs have had regular meetings with them, including one specifically on this issue. That is why I raised the importance of their being given the opportunity to take responsibility, which I hope my hon. Friend will welcome.
Will Quince
I certainly do welcome that, because this is not just about commissioning, but about accountability and oversight.
Our changes will allow NHS commissioners to have more flexibility in commissioning, and I think that is really important, because if they have that flexibility in commissioning additional dental services, they are the ones who know the local need within their area. I want to see far more responsive management of contracts, so if they have underperforming practices and practices that can do more, we should enable such practices to do that. For example, a high-performing practice should be able to deliver beyond its existing contract to make up for the fact that a neighbouring practice is not doing so. That addresses some of the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney about the clawback of UDA funding at the end of the year, and then its not necessarily being spent on dentistry. As part of that, I also want and expect more transparency. We will make it a requirement for NHS dentists to update the information on their NHS website, so people can see which dentists are accepting new NHS patients for treatment.
On that point, I want to bust the myth about being registered with a dentist. There is no such thing as being registered with a dentist or a dental list. People approach an NHS dentist for specific treatment. They go on their list, register and have the treatment. They can have an ongoing relationship with a dentist, but anyone can book an appointment with any dentist with an NHS contract, regardless of where they live in the country. It is important to get that message out, because when our constituents say to us, “I can’t get a dentist locally”—I want to address that point—I want to ensure that they know that they could travel to a neighbouring town or city. They could travel half way across the country if they wanted to, for example if they had relatives there, if there was a NHS dentist who had capacity to see them.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Will Quince and Richard Graham(4 years, 7 months ago)
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Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Will Quince) [V]
Since mid-March, we have processed around 2 million universal credit claims. Despite that surge, the system is standing up to the challenge and demonstrating that resilience is part of its design, with over 90% of new eligible claimants expected to be paid in full and on time. There is no way that the legacy benefit system would have been able to cope with such pressure.
Richard Graham [V]
I am grateful to all the jobcentres, and particularly the one in Gloucester, which has done a remarkable job of registering so many of my constituents. Some people discover when they register that they lose child tax credit before any new benefits are payable. What can my hon. Friend the Minister do to help provide our constituents with better tools to assess what will happen and whether they will be better or worse off when they first register for universal credit?
Will Quince [V]
I thank my hon. Friend for his question and for rightly praising DWP staff for the work they are doing. That issue has been raised by a number of colleagues, and I am looking at data and exploring options. We have been working closely with Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to encourage people to check their eligibility before making a claim and ensure that tax credit claimants understand that when they have claimed UC, their tax credits will end, and they cannot return to legacy benefits.
Baby Loss Awareness Week
Debate between Will Quince and Richard Graham(6 years, 2 months ago)
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Will Quince (Colchester) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Hugh Gaffney); I am pleased to say that his is one of the Scottish constituencies that I do not have a problem pronouncing. I should also like to thank all the previous speakers, particularly the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Ben Lake). He and the hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill have shown the importance of hearing men’s voices in the Baby Loss Awareness Week debate. I particularly want to thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing the time for this debate, and my hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Antoinette Sandbach), the co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group, for securing this important debate for the third year running.
In November 2015, when I was a relatively newly elected MP, I remember coming back after the recess and putting in for an end-of-day Adjournment debate. Based on my own experience, I thought we should have a debate on bereavement care in maternity units. Little did I think that we would have made such progress in just over three years. We now have the all-party parliamentary group, and we are in our third year of marking Baby Loss Awareness Week here in Parliament. That demonstrates the power of this place when we put aside the squabbling and party political differences and work together with a clear aim. It is clear that we are united and speak with one voice when we say that we are committed to reducing stillbirths and neonatal deaths—I include miscarriage in that description. We are also committed to ensuring that we have world-class bereavement care right across our world-class NHS for those who go through the huge personal tragedy of losing a child.
This is a particularly important and poignant week for me and my family, because it is four years ago this week that we lost our son, Robert. We will be marking his birthday on Friday, when he would have been four years old. On Sunday, my two daughters and I picked out the birthday cake that we will be sharing. Sadly, we are just one of the families who are going through this experience week in and week out, up and down our country.
We should not underestimate the importance of talking about baby loss. This is why debates such as these are so important and powerful. Totally wrongly, baby loss is a massively taboo subject. We have made huge efforts over the past three and a half years to try to break the silence and the taboo by working with charities, organisations and health professionals, but the taboo still exists. It exists because we do not like talking about death, full stop, and particularly about the death of children or babies. It is important that we talk about it, however, because that little baby was a huge part of somebody’s life. It is part of their story and their journey, and to ignore it can cause irreparable issues.
We must use the power of Parliament to break that taboo and talk about the issue, rather than crossing the street and avoiding someone who has suffered a stillbirth, miscarriage or neonatal death. We should talk to them about it. We should ask about their child and refer to them by their name, because people do want to talk. If they do not want to talk, they will tell us. It is really important that they should not be ignored.
Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)
I am so impressed by the work of the all-party parliamentary group. I rang my sister, who lost a baby a long time ago, to ask her what she would say if she were here. She asked me to encourage hon. Members to ensure that two things are available in hospitals. First, there should be someone practical to give advice on issues such as burials. The second, more important, thing was to have someone who can give emotional support to people who are in a moment of crisis and panic, and she felt strongly that in today’s era such services should be multi-faith and no faith. The chaplain’s offices in our Gloucestershire Royal Hospital can do that.
I should also like to mention a male constituent of mine who said that there had been a lot of support for his wife when they lost a child, but there had been no male support group. What does my hon. Friend think of those suggestions?