Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will make an estimate of the amount of ringfenced NHS dental funding that Integrated Care Boards have released to non-dentistry budgets to cover costs associated with strike action in the NHS in (a) 2023 and (b) 2024.

NHS England provided guidance for integrated care boards (ICBs) that requires dental allocations to be ringfenced in 2023/24, with any unused resources re-directed to improve National Health Service dental access in the first instance and not spent on other services. In November 2023, NHS England confirmed that where ICBs had not spent all of their allocation on improving access to dentistry, they would be able to retain any underspend and use this to balance their bottom line and any other pressures. ICBs will decide how to use any forecast underspend in line with this guidance. We are currently considering arrangements for 2024/25.

There are no current estimates of how much dental ringfence NHS dental funding has been used to support costs associated with strike action. NHS England has issued additional funding to systems of £800 million so far in this financial year to directly cover the costs of strikes.