Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to reduce the backlog of people waiting for NHS dental appointments in North Cornwall constituency.

This Government plans to tackle the challenges for patients trying to access National Health Service dental care with a rescue plan to provide 700,000 more urgent dental appointments and recruit new dentists to areas that need them most. To rebuild dentistry in the long term, we will reform the dental contract, 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 is delegated to integrated care boards (ICBs) across England. For North Cornwall constituency, this is the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly ICB. The Cornwall and Isles of Scilly ICB is taking actions to make NHS dental care more accessible, including the commissioning of additional urgent dental care appointments across the South-West, a dental helpline for urgent advice; and an access pilot project in Cornwall to support the most vulnerable people to access an NHS dentist.