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 residents that cannot access routine NHS dental care prior to full implementation of dentistry contract reform.

The Government is committed to ensuring people can access urgent dental care when they need it. Over the past year, integrated care boards have been commissioning additional urgent dental appointments and there is now an urgent care safety net available in all areas of the country. 1.8 million additional courses of National Health Service dental treatment have been delivered in the seven months between April to October 2025 compared to the corresponding months prior to the general election.

We are committed to delivering fundamental reform of the dental contract before the end of this Parliament.  As a first step, on 16 December we published the Government’s response to the public consultation on quality and payment reforms to the NHS dental contract. The changes will be introduced from April 2026. These reforms will put patients with greatest need first, incentivising urgent care and complex treatments. Further information is available at following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/nhs-dentistry-contract-quality-and-payment-reforms/outcome/government-response-to-consultation-on-nhs-dentistry-contract-quality-and-payment-reforms