Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what progress she has made on the review of NHS dental contracts.

The Department worked with NHS England and negotiated with the British Dental Association on improvements to the National Health Service dental system which was announced on 19 July 2022. These improvements are supported by the sector and will improve access, target care for patients with higher oral health needs and ensure that dentists are more fairly rewarded for delivering NHS care, making NHS dentistry a more attractive place to work for dentists and their teams.

It also includes improving the 2006 contract to ensure better remuneration for practices for providing complex treatment to patients, issuing guidance on how often patients should expect to attend for check-ups and enabling dentists to make better use of staff in dental teams to deliver NHS treatment. This will also enable greater flexibility for NHS commissioners in commissioning dentists to deliver more treatment where needed and make it a requirement for dentists to update practice information on NHS.UK. We have commenced the next phase of reforms which will focus on urgent care, funding models and terms and conditions.