Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of reforming the national dentistry model to align it with NHS general medical services to include patient registration with NHS dentists.

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

There are no perfect payment systems and careful consideration needs to be given to any potential changes to the complex dental system so that we deliver a system better 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 these can increase access and incentivise the workforce to deliver more NHS care.

Patients in England are not registered with an NHS dental practice, although many NHS dental practices do tend to see patients regularly. There is no geographical restriction on which practice a patient may attend.