Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he has taken to (a) monitor and (b) assess the impact of the Dentistry Rescue Plan in (i) Wiltshire and (ii) Chippenham; and what criteria he uses to assess improved access to NHS dental services in those areas.

The Government’s ambition is to make sure that everyone who needs dental treatment can access a dentist. The Government will tackle the immediate crisis with a rescue plan to provide 700,000 more urgent dental appointments and recruit new dentists to the areas that need them most.

We are working with NHS England, the NHS Business Services Authority, and the integrated care boards to set out the requirements for monitoring and reporting progress against the 700,000 urgent appointments, which will enable us to identify where further support is needed. Data on the number of dentists recruited under the Golden Hello scheme is regularly collected by NHS England.