Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many dental contract pilots have been conducted since 2010; and what the findings were of those pilots.

From 2011, the Department ran one pilot, followed by one prototype contract in a limited number of dental practices, to test a new form of contract remuneration for National Health Service work, based on a capitation approach.

Assessment of the pilots suggested that if they were implemented as designed, the proposed contract model would not maintain dental access for patients, reduce oral health inequalities, or offer overall sustainability within available resources for the NHS. Nevertheless, these pilots and prototypes provided good insight and learning, and will inform future contract reform.

The programme closed at the end of March 2022, and the Department published a full report on the prototype programme on 23 January 2023, which is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dental-conract-reform-evaluating-the-results-of-the-prototype-scheme