Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how his Department plans to measure the potential impact of NHS dental contract reforms on improving access to dentistry in rural and coastal communities.

We are aware of the challenges faced in accessing a dentist, particularly in more rural and coastal areas. From April 2026, we will be implementing reforms to the current National Health Service dental contract to improve access for patients with urgent and complex needs. A full impact assessment on the reforms has been published and is available at the following link:

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukia/2026/42

The Department will monitor the impact of the reforms post-implementation, including through the monitoring of annually published statistics.

We are committed to delivering further, fundamental reform of the dental contract before the end of this Parliament.