Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of levels of recruitment and retention in NHS dentistry; and what steps he plans to take to tackle this.

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

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

The NHSBSA’s annual dental statistics publication provides details of dental activity and dental workforce data for National Health Service dental treatment in England, including the number of dentists delivering NHS treatment, by contract type and commissioning region.

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.

Earlier this year, the Department ran a consultation on introducing a further piece of legislation to give the General Dental Council powers to provisionally register overseas qualified dentists, which would help to address some of the workforce challenges.