Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he plans to bring forward legislative proposals on the provision of dental services.

We are currently reviewing the previous Government’s Dental Recovery Plan and what elements of that can be taken forward effectively and within National Health Service budgets. It is also clear that plan did not go far enough and so we are also working on further measures, prioritising initiatives that will see the biggest impact on access to NHS dental care.

The Government is committed to tackling the challenges for patients trying to access NHS dental care with a rescue plan to provide 700,000 more urgent dental appointments and to recruit new dentists to areas that need them most. To rebuild dentistry in the long term, we will reform the dental contract, with a shift to focus on prevention and retaining NHS dentists. Not all improvements to the provision of NHS dental services may require legislative changes.