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 improve access to NHS dentists in (a) Calderdale and (b) England.

Contractual arrangements for the first six months of the 2021/22 financial year have been communicated to dental practices by NHS England and NHS Improvement. National Health Service dentists have been asked to maximise safe throughput to meet as many prioritised needs as possible. A revised unit of dental activity threshold has been set at 60% for full payment of NHS contractual value, based on data that indicates practices have capacity to safely achieve more dental activity than in the final quarter of 2020/21. It is expected that this increased threshold will improve access to NHS dentistry. Arrangements will continue to be monitored and at current are expected to be in place for six months in order to provide increased stability for dental practices.

Calder Valley, received additional funding as part of the access scheme. This has been extended until the end of September 2021 and NHS England and NHS Improvement are currently considering the most effective way to support practices to improve access for patients. In circumstances where patients are unable to access an urgent dental appointment directly through a NHS dental practice, they are advised to call NHS 111 who will assist in booking an appointment at one of over 100 designated urgent care centres, which continue to stay open across Yorkshire.