Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many child patients as a relative proportion of the local population had an appointment with an NHS dentist in (a) Bradford Districts Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCG) and (b) Bradford City CCG in (i) July 2015 to June 2016, (ii) July 2014 to June 2015 and (iii) July 2013 to June 2014.

Information is not available in the format requested.

NHS Digital is not able to provide numbers of people who had an appointment with a National Health Service dentist. However, it is able to provide the number of patients seen at specified dates as a percentage of the population. This covers patients seen by an NHS dentist, including work undertaken by dentists under vocational training and orthodontic patients. It does not, however, cover dental treatment carried out in hospitals under Hospital Dental Services, nor under services provided privately.

Table: Count of the number of child patients (aged 17 and under) seen in the specified time periods, and as a percentage of the population in Bradford Districts CCG and Bradford City CCG

Notes:

1. The figures are for the number of patients seen at least once during the 24 month period. Patients are counted in this data set on their first visit only.

2. Patients seen are allocated to a CCG via the dentist which they attend for treatment and not by the home postcode of the patient. Most patients will live within the CCG/Region in which they receive primary care dental services but some will attend a dentist further afield (near their place of employment, for example). Therefore it is possible for the percentage of the population figures to exceed 100%.

3. Due to the change in methodology from patients seen in the previous 24 months to patients seen in the previous 12 months, data for the period ending 30 June 2016 is not comparable to previous years.

4. Population data are sourced from the Office for National Statistics.