Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to his Department’s press release entitled Dental patients to benefit from 700,000 extra urgent appointments, published on 21 February 2025, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of the time taken to provide additional urgent dental appointments on (a) patients and (b) dental surgeries.

National Health Service planning guidance has now been published for 2025/26 and sets out the funding available to integrated care boards (ICBs). Planning guidance also confirms that improving access to urgent dental appointments is a key national priority.

We will deliver 700,000 extra urgent dental appointments per year, and have asked that ICBs start making extra appointments available for patients from April 2025.

Whilst NHS England is not mandating an approach to the purchasing of these additional appointments, ICBs could consider options such as buying more appointments through new or recommissioned contracts, through modification of existing contracts, or by using flexible commissioning.

For the remainder of 2024/25, ICBs should continue to secure additional urgent care capacity and offer contractors providing mandatory services additional funded activity up to 110% where feasible.