Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment she has made of trends in levels of morale in the dental profession; and what steps her Department is taking to retain dentists.

NHS England publishes data on dentists’ working patterns, motivation, and morale, most recently on 25 April 2024, which is available at the following link:

https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/dental-working-hours/2022-23-working-patterns-motivation-and-morale?key=FMh9QF47eDnxL0TEhtBkBsPgH7eWhfSJqURn3f6kRNOTbaKuOUhL1l9vpEKJPdd5

The Dentistry Recovery Plan will make dental services faster, simpler, and fairer for patients, and will fund approximately 2.5 million additional appointments, or more than 1.5 million additional courses of dental treatment.

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.

Furthermore, our New Patient Premium will offer dental practices cash incentives for taking on new patients, giving better access to anyone who has not received NHS dental care in the past two years. Dentists will receive an extra £15 or £50 per treatment, depending on the work required, which is on top of the funding they would already receive for this care.