Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what information her Department holds on the number of children aged ten and under that received dental (a) treatment and (b) surgery under general anaesthetic in each year since 2015.

The data for children aged ten years old and under that have received dental treatment and surgery under general anaesthetic is not held centrally. We want to improve oral hygiene and access to dental care for all children, regardless of where in England they live. Access to dentistry is improving, and last year around 800,000 more children saw a National Health Service dentist.

On 7 February 2024 we published Our Plan to Recover and Reform NHS Dentistry. The Dentistry Recovery Plan will make dental services faster, simpler, and fairer for patients, and will fund approximately 2.5 million additional appointments. The plan also sets out a new emphasis on prevention and good oral health in children. This includes supporting nurseries and early years settings to incorporate good oral hygiene into daily routines and providing advice to expectant parents on how to protect their baby’s teeth. The plan will also deploy mobile dental teams into schools in under-served areas to provide advice and deliver preventative treatments to more than 165,000 children.