Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of access to emergency dentistry in Surrey.

The Dental Statistics - England 2023/24, published by the NHS Business Services Authority on 22 August 2024, is available from the following link:

https://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/statistical-collections/dental-england/dental-statistics-england-202324

In 2023/24, 47,123 urgent National Health Service dental treatments were delivered in the Surrey Heartlands Integrated Care Board (ICB). This was 8.25% of all NHS dental treatments delivered in the Surrey Heartlands ICB that year. In England in 2023/24, 3,674,731 urgent NHS dental treatments were delivered, which was 10.7% of all treatments delivered.

The Government plans to tackle the challenges for patients trying to access NHS dental care with a rescue plan to provide 700,000 more urgent dental appointments and recruit new dentists to the areas that need them most. To rebuild dentistry in the long term, we will reform the dental contract with the sector, with a shift to focus on prevention and the retention of NHS dentists.

The responsibility for commissioning primary care services, including NHS dentistry, to meet the needs of the local population has been delegated to the ICBs across England. For the Surrey constituency, this is the NHS Surrey Heartlands ICB.