Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent discussions he has had with representatives of the dentistry profession on the potential involvement of that profession covid-19 vaccine delivery.

An enormous amount of work has already taken place to ensure we have the required workforce to roll out a COVID-19 vaccine to the United Kingdom population at the pace and scale required.

To enable this, the Department made changes to the Human Medicines Regulations 2012 in Oct 2020 (The Human Medicines (Coronavirus and Influenza) (Amendment) Regulations 2020). This allows additional health care professionals and those who have passed a programme of extensive training developed by Public Health England and Health Education England to safely administer a licensed or temporarily authorised influenza or COVID-19 vaccine.

Staff working in dental services – particularly those who are registered with relevant professional groups – have been encouraged to consider applying for temporary roles to support the COVID-19 vaccination programme, including as vaccinators. Information has been provided to dental staff groups on how they might apply for these opportunities.