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 increase the number of NHS dentists in rural areas.

We acknowledge that there are areas of the country that are experiencing recruitment and retention issues and we are taking steps to address the National Health Service dental workforce challenges across the country.

The NHS Long Term Workforce Plan, published on 30 June, sets out the steps the National Health Service and its partners need to take to deliver an NHS workforce that meets the changing needs of the population over the next 15 years. These include a 40% increase to dentistry undergraduate training places by 2031/32. To support this ambition, we will expand places by 24% by 2028/29, taking the overall number that year to 1,000 places.

Furthermore, our plan for dentistry will be published shortly to build upon a package of improvements to the NHS dental system announced in July 2022.