Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an assessment of amending the Units of Dental Activity (UDA) allocation of an urgent band of treatment from 1.2 UDAs to 3 UDAs retrospectively from 1 January 2021 until the end of the covid-19 outbreak to (a) reduce contractual pressures on dentists and (b) take into account the time taken to see urgent patients during the covid-19 outbreak.

The Department has no current plans to assess the units of dental activity (UDA) allocation for urgent dental treatment.

Contractual arrangements for the first six months of the 2021/22 financial year have been introduced by NHS England and NHS Improvement. The revised UDA threshold set at 60% is based on data that indicates practices may now have capacity to safely achieve more dental activity. Arrangements will be monitored on a monthly basis and are expected to be in place for six months in order to provide increased stability for dental practices. National Health Service commissioners have the discretion to make exceptions, for instance in cases where a dental practice has been impacted by staff being required to self-isolate.