Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to help support the (a) recruitment and (b) retention of dentists in South Basildon and East Thurrock constituency.

We are determined to rebuild National Health Service dentistry, but it will take time and there are no quick fixes. Strengthening the workforce is key to our ambitions. We are exploring how we can better support the whole dental team to work in NHS dentistry.

To rebuild dentistry in the long term, we will reform the dental contract with the sector, with a shift to focus on prevention and the retention of NHS dentists. The NHS Mid and South Essex Integrated Care Board was allocated three posts from the dental recruitment incentive scheme. Of these, two posts have so far been successfully filled. Further information on the dental recruitment incentive scheme is available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/dental-recruitment-incentive-scheme-2024-25/