Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many children have been seen by a dentist in (a) Pendle constituency and (b) the North West in each of the last five years.

Information is not available in the format requested.

The following tables show the number of children (less than 18 years of age), and the number of patients, seen in the specified National Health Service organisations for dental care in the 24-month period ending 31 March each year.

Table 1: Number of children (less than 18 years of age) in the specified NHS organisations in the 24-month period ending 31 March each year

Table 2: Number of patients seen in the specified NHS organisations in the 24-month period ending 31 March each year

Source: The Health and Social Care Information Centre

Notes:

1. The Health and Social Care Information Centre publishes the numbers of patients seen by an NHS dentist, including work undertaken by dentists under vocational training and orthodontic patients. It does not, however, cover dental treatment carried out in hospital under Hospital Dental Services, nor under services provided privately.

2. Latest information is available at clinical commissioning group (CCG) and area team (AT). Earlier years are only available at primary care trust (PCT) and strategic health authority (SHA). It is not possible to map earlier information to the new NHS organisation structure.

3. East Lancashire Teaching PCT and East Lancashire CCG have been provided as the closest proximity to Pendle constituency.

4. The patients seen measure shows the unique number of patients who received NHS dental care in the previous 24 months. An equivalent measure covering the 12 month period is not available.