Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to improve NHS dental access in Liverpool.

The responsibility for commissioning primary care dentistry to meet the needs of the local population is delegated to integrated care boards (ICBs) across England. For the Liverpool Garston constituency, this is the NHS Cheshire and Merseyside ICB.

1.8 million additional courses of National Health Service dental treatment have been delivered in the seven months between April and October 2025 compared to the corresponding months prior to the general election, nearly half of which were delivered to children. We have reduced the dental underspend from £392 million in 2023/24 to just £36 million in 2024/25, maximising the treatments provided for taxpayers’ money and delivering on our aim that every penny for NHS dentistry is spent on NHS dentistry.

From April 2026, we began introducing a package of reforms to address some of the pressing issues that dental teams have been experiencing. These reforms will prioritise those with the greatest need, shifting care away from clinically unnecessary check-ups.

We are also committed to fundamentally reforming the dental contract, with a focus on matching resources to need, improving access, promoting prevention and rewarding dentists fairly, while enabling the whole dental team to work to the top of their capability.