Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what his Department's timetable is for the commencement of dentist contract renegotiations.

To rebuild dentistry in the long term and increase access to National Health Service dental care, we will reform the dental contract, with a shift to focus on prevention and the retention of NHS dentists.

There are no perfect payment systems and careful consideration needs to be given to any potential changes to the complex dental system so that we deliver a system better for patients and the profession. We continue to meet the British Dental Association and other representatives of the dental sector to discuss how we can best deliver our shared ambition to improve access for NHS dental patients.