Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what guidance his Department provides to integrated care boards on the use of funding for dentistry; and whether such funding is required to be ring-fenced for the provision of dentistry services.

NHS England has issued guidance on the ringfencing of dental budgets between 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025, which is available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/revenue-finance-and-contracting-guidance-for-2024-25/

To ensure compliance against this requirement, and to strengthen oversight of funding that is used to deliver access to National Health Service dental care, NHS England will meet with and collect monthly returns from all integrated care boards to establish current and planned spend against the ringfenced dental allocations budget.