Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to promote ongoing, routine preventative dental care to protect people's oral health.

Public Health England have published the guidance ‘Delivering better oral health - an evidence-based toolkit for prevention’, for dental teams to support preventive advice and treatment for their patients. The toolkit includes evidence-based advice and treatment that dentists and their teams can use to support their patients to help prevent tooth decay, gum disease, mouth cancer and tooth wear. This toolkit is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/delivering-better-oral-health-an-evidence-based-toolkit-for-prevention

The dental contract reform programme has been piloting new contract models to better incentivise preventative and restorative treatments. The Department will publish an evaluation of the programme this summer and based on the learning, NHS England and NHS Improvement will take forward the design of proposals to protect and improve oral health.