Dental Services

(asked on 4th May 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of the range of urgent dental treatments available through NHS England.


Answered by
Jo Churchill Portrait
Jo Churchill
Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
This question was answered on 3rd June 2020

To meet the Government social distancing measures and to contain the spread of Covid-19 all routine dentistry has currently been suspended.

We expect all NHS dental practices to provide urgent telephone advice and triage. Dentists are giving urgent advice remotely and, if needed, prescriptions for painkillers or antibiotics. All urgent face to face treatment that is clinically necessary is available for patients who are triaged by their dentist or NHS111 into one of the 550 urgent dental care centres set up by NHS England and NHS Improvement.

The urgent dental centres are expected to provide, where urgently needed, the full range of dental treatment normally available on the NHS. Data is not available on the number of patients who are waiting for routine dental treatment.

NHS England and NHS Improvement announced on 28 May that NHS dentistry outside urgent care centres will begin to restart from 8 June with the aim of increasing levels of service as fast as is compatible with maximising safety.

A copy of the letter that was published can be found at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/coronavirus/wp-ontent/uploads/sites/52/2020/03/Urgent-dental-care-letter-28-May.pdf

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