Dental Services: Cornwall

(asked on 21st November 2023) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment her Department has made of the adequacy of NHS dental provision in Cornwall.


Answered by
Andrea Leadsom Portrait
Andrea Leadsom
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
This question was answered on 28th November 2023

We acknowledge that there are additional pressures facing National Health Service dental services in certain parts of the country, including in the South-West of England.

From 1 April 2023, responsibility for commissioning primary care dentistry to meet the needs of the local population has been delegated to all integrated care boards (ICBs) across England. ICBs are responsible for having local processes in place to involve patient groups, and for undertaking oral health needs assessments, to identify areas of need and determine the priorities for investment. NHS England has been working with ICB partners on the South-West Dental Reform Programme and have commissioned additional urgent dental care appointments that people can access via NHS 111.

The NHS Long Term Workforce Plan, published on 30 June 2023, sets out the steps the National Health Service and its partners need to take to deliver an NHS workforce that meets the changing needs of the population over the next 15 years. These include a 40% increase to dentistry undergraduate training places by 2031/32.

In July 2022, we announced a package of reforms to improve access to NHS dentistry, which outlined the steps we are taking to meet oral health needs and increase access to dental care. But we know we need to do more, including in some areas where access is particularly problematic. We are working on our Dentistry Recovery Plan which will be published shortly.

Reticulating Splines