Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the potential implications for its policies of the Adult Oral Health survey published on 9 December 2025.

The Adult Oral Health Survey 2023 provides the first picture of adult oral health in England for more than a decade. It provides further evidence of the need for dental contract reform.

We are taking forward significant changes to the National Health Service dental contract. The reforms will prioritise patients with urgent dental needs and those requiring complex treatments, and will come in from April 2026. We are committed to fundamental reform of the NHS dental contract by the end of this Parliament, with a focus on improving access, promoting prevention, and rewarding dentists fairly.

The Government is also focussed on prevention of poor dental health through our supervised toothbrushing programme to reach up to 600,000 children in the 20% most deprived areas of England, and by expanding community water fluoridation to the North East of England. This intervention will reach an additional 1.6 million people and will reduce tooth decay and inequalities in dental health, particularly in children and vulnerable adults.