Dental Services: Finance

(asked on 12th January 2022) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what dedicated (a) capital and (b) other financial support has been allocated to primary care NHS dental services in England to support those services through the covid-19 outbreak, in (a) 2020-21, (b) 2021-22 and (c) 2022-23.


Answered by
Maria Caulfield Portrait
Maria Caulfield
Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
This question was answered on 1st March 2022

Throughout the pandemic, we have provided funding to ensure National Health Service dental practices continue to receive the full contract value, minus agreed deductions for variable costs, for delivering a reduced volume of activity. Safe activity thresholds triggering the payment of full contract value have been set, based upon data demonstrating what dentists have achieved to date and consideration of infection prevention and control guidance. The funding provided to the NHS to for practice income protection has also covered the reduction in patient charge revenue received due to reduced activity.

Free personal protective equipment has also been provided to dental practices in 2020/21 and 2021/22 and now extended to 31 March 2023 or until infection prevention and control guidance is withdrawn or significantly amended. An additional £50 million has been made available for the remainder of 2021/22 to allow more patients access to dental care.

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