Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the Answer of 29 January 2017 to Question 61554, what information on the availability of dental services his Department routinely collects.

The information that is routinely collected is set out below:

- Dental Commissioning Statistics, England

These statistics report the volume of Units of Dental Activity commissioned by NHS England for the upcoming 12 months. This data is collected by NHS England and published quarterly at local office, regional and national level by NHS England. The latest publication can be found here:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/2017/02/02/dc0164738_dec16/

- NHS Dental Statistics for England: Patients Seen - by Dental Practice

These statistics report the number of adult patients seen in the previous 24 months and the number of children seen in the previous 12 months, for National Health Service dental care. This data is published quarterly at clinical commissioning group (CCG), local authority and national level. The data is collected by NHS Business Services Authority and published by NHS Digital for public use. The latest publication can be found here:

http://www.content.digital.nhs.uk/article/2021/Website-Search?productid=23602&q=NHS+Dental+Statistics+for+England&sort=Relevance&size=10&page=1&area=both#top

- General Practitioner (GP) Patient Survey Dental Statistics, England

The GP Patient Survey, previously published twice yearly, will be published annually from July 2017 at national, regional and CCG level. It includes information about the number of patients who tried to get an NHS dental appointment in the last two years, how successful they were and for those who did not try to get an appointment a question to ask why they hadn’t tried. The data is collected by Ipsos Mori on behalf of NHS England and published by Ipsos Mori and NHS England. The latest publication can be found here:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/2016/07/07/gpps_dent_y10w23357969/