Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, for each region of England in each of the last five years, how many patients with (1) head and neck cancer, and (2) hypodontia, have received treatment with dental implants.

The attached table provides a count of Finished Consultant Episodes (FCEs) by Strategic Health Authority from 2008-09 to 2012-13 for patients with a primary diagnosis of either head or neck cancer¹ or anodontia² with a main or secondary operative procedure of a dental implant.

Information on the cost to the National Health Service of dental implants for patients with head or neck cancer or hypodontia is not available in the format requested. The most relevant information is shown in the following table and is from reference costs, which are the average unit cost to NHS trusts and NHS foundation trusts of providing defined services in a given financial year to NHS patients.

These costs include dental implants and other similar procedures, but do not distinguish between procedures on patients with diagnoses of head or neck cancer or hypodontia.

Table: Estimated costs of dental implants and other clinically similar procedures

¹ It is unlikely that a dental implant would be carried out on the same episode as another treatment for cancer, so the count for head and neck cancer is likely to be a substantial undercount. This is because the implant is unlikely to occur until the cancer treatment was completed. If this is the case, the cancer code would not be recorded on the episode where the dental implant took place.

² The diagnosis of anodontia includes but is not exclusive to those diagnosed with hypodontia.