Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether her Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of incentives for dentists to work in areas with the most urgent needs.

We acknowledge that there are areas of the country that are experiencing recruitment and retention issues and we are taking steps to address the workforce challenges across the country. We are working on our Dentistry Recovery Plan, to be published shortly, which will address how we continue to improve access, particularly for new patients; and how we make National Health Service work more attractive to ensure NHS dentists are incentivised to deliver NHS care.