Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will take steps to provide additional funding to help prevent the closure of NHS dental services.

The National Health Service reformed dental contracts in 2022 which will help to improve access for patients across England while providing fairer remuneration for dentists. We are already investing £3 billion a year into dentistry and are working hard to improve access to care. We know that we must go further and will publish a Dentistry Recovery Plan shortly.

From 1 April 2023, the commissioning responsibility for commissioning primary care dentistry to meet the needs of the local population was delegated to integrated care boards (ICBs) across England. ICBs became responsible for having local processes in place to involve patient groups, and for undertaking oral health needs assessments, to identify areas of need and determine the priorities for investment.