Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of poor access to NHS dental services on health outcomes in Gloucestershire.

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

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

The data for the Gloucestershire Integrated Care Board, which includes the Cheltenham constituency, shows that 29% of adults were seen by a National Health Service dentist in the previous 24 months, compared to 40% in England, and 51% of children were seen by an NHS dentist in the previous 12 months, compared to 56% in England.

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 and increase access to NHS dental care, we will reform the dental contract, with a shift to focus on prevention and the retention of NHS dentists.