Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will make it her policy to (a) produce and (b) publish a strategy to reduce the cost of dentistry.

The National Health Service in England invests £3 billion on dentistry every year. We want to protect dental resources for dental care, ensuring that the full dental budget made available each year is spent on delivering dental care, and prioritise access for patients. We are working on our Dentistry Recovery Plan which will address how we continue to improve access, particularly for new patients; and how we make NHS work more attractive to ensure NHS dentists are incentivised to deliver more NHS care.

We have also frozen dental patient charges between December 2020 and April 2023 and we continue to provide financial support to those who need it most by offering exemptions from charges. Support is also available through the NHS Low Income Scheme for those patients who are not eligible for exemption or full remission.