Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he has taken to secure a new NHS dental contract.

We are committed to delivering fundamental reform of the dental contract before the end of this Parliament. As a first step, we published the Government’s response to the public consultation on shorter term improvements to the National Health Service dental contract on 16 December 2025. The changes will be introduced from April 2026. These reforms will put patients with the greatest needs first while incentivising urgent care and complex treatments. Further information is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/nhs-dentistry-contract-quality-and-payment-reforms/outcome/government-response-to-consultation-on-nhs-dentistry-contract-quality-and-payment-reforms

We are continuing to work with the British Dental Association and other representatives of the dental sector, including through Ministerial meetings, to deliver our shared ambition to improve access to treatments for NHS dental patients.