Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of the availability of dentistry in Great Yarmouth constituency.

Dental Statistics - England 2023/24, published by the NHS Business Services Authority on 22 August 2024, is available at the following link:

https://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/statistical-collections/dental-england/dental-statistics-england-202324

As Lord Darzi made clear in his independent investigation of the National Health Service in England, there are wide variations in the number of NHS dentists per population in different areas of the country. Rural and coastal communities particularly lack access to NHS dentistry. This is certainly the case in Norfolk and Waveney, where the integrated care board has 31.5 dentists per 100,000 population, compared to an average of 49.5 per 100,000 across England.

We have announced a rescue plan to provide 700,000 more urgent dental appointments and recruit new dentists to areas that need them most. 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 NHS dentists.