Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he plans to take to ensure that access to dental services for the prevention of decay is not subject to significant regional or national variation across the UK.

NHS England has a legal duty to commission primary care dental services to meet local needs. Access to primary care dental services continues to increase nationally. 22.2 million adults were seen by a dentist in the 24 month period ending 30 June 2017 and 6.8 million children were seen by a dentist in the 12 month period ending 30 June 2017, but we know NHS England has further to go in ensuring access needs are met in all areas.

New ways of providing National Health Service dental services are being tested which aim to further improve oral health and increase access to NHS dental services, by preventing as well as treating disease. Alongside this is NHS England’s recently launched Starting Well programme, which will run in 13 high needs areas to improve access to dental services for children known to be at greater risk of dental disease and who are not currently being seen by a dentist.