Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to improve the availability of NHS dentists.

National Health Service dental practices were able to restart face to face care from 8 June. We are working closely with NHS England and NHS Improvement and the Chief Dental Officer for England to increase levels of service, as fast as is safely possible, taking into account Public Health England guidance and continued infection risks.

Almost all the over 6,000 NHS dental practices in England have now reopened. In addition, over 600 urgent dental centres remain open to support the provision of urgent and emergency face to face care for dental patients. Any patients unable to get urgent care at their own practice should be referred to urgent dental care centres, where needed locally.