Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the press release entitled Dental patients to benefit from 700,000 extra urgent appointments, published on 21 February 2025, if he will instruct NHS England to make further changes to the commissioning of NHS dentistry in 2025.

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

There are no perfect payment models and careful consideration needs to be given to any potential changes to the complex dental system so that we deliver genuine improvements for patients and the profession.

We are continuing to work with the British Dental Association and other representatives of the dental sector to deliver our shared ambition to improve access to treatments for NHS dental patients. At the same time, we will not wait to make improvements to the current system, where they can increase access and incentivise the workforce to deliver more NHS care.