Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate he has made of the funding required to meet demand for NHS dental services in Buckingham and Bletchley constituency in the next 12 months.

Integrated care boards (ICBs) are responsible for commissioning primary care dentistry and receive an annual allocation of funding to secure services to meet the needs of their population. For the Buckingham and Bletchley constituency, this is the NHS Bedfordshire, Luton and Milton Keynes ICB. Further information on ICB allocation funding for 2026/27 to 2027/28 is available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/allocations/

In 2024/25, we invested around £3.7 billion on primary care dentistry. We want to ensure that every penny we allocate for dentistry is spent on dentistry, and that the ringfenced dental budget is spent on the patients who need it most.

We have reduced the National Health Service dentistry underspend from £392 million in 2023/24 to £36 million in 2024/25.