Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent workforce planning he has undertaken for NHS dentistry; and if he will make a statement.

NHS England and NHS Improvement are responsible for commissioning primary care dentistry to meet local need. Health Education England’s Advancing Dental Care Education and Training Review programme considers how dental and oral health needs can be met through changes to the workforce. This includes opportunities for flexible training pathways to improve career progression and retention and how to attract dentistry teams to provide NHS services in areas which are less well served.

NHS England and NHS Improvement are developing proposals for dental system reform, working with the Department and key stakeholders. This programme seeks to make NHS dentistry more attractive to the profession, in addition to exploring how the whole dental team can be best utilised to deliver National Health Service care.