Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will make an assessment of the potential impact of offering one-off payments to dentists that agree to work in under-served areas on the morale of other dentists.

We want to encourage all professionals to commit more of their time to National Health Service work, and to work in areas of the country with low provision of NHS dental care. That is why we are introducing Golden Hellos, as set out in our plan to reform and recover NHS dentistry. A golden hello of £20,000 will be offered per dentist, for a total of up to 240 dentists. The Golden Hellos will support practices in areas where recruitment is particularly challenging and make a real difference to those patients needing dental care.