Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the role of the Care Quality Commission when inspecting dental businesses; and whether they have any plans to ask them also to consider the availability of NHS appointments when carrying out dental inspections.

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) regulates all health and social care services including dental services in England. CQC carries out assessments of primary dental services to determine if they are compliant with regulations. CQC inspects 10% of dental services each year, as they are considered to pose a lower risk to patient safety than other regulated sectors, though they can, and do, inspect more frequently if concerns are raised. Instead of a single rating, CQC displays ticks and crosses against each of their five key questions to show if any enforcement or improvement actions are required.This results in a ‘regulations met’ or ‘regulations not met’ judgement. The availability of NHS dental appointments is not a condition of registration, nor is it a regulated activity, and so is not something that would be inspected. CQC does not currently look at wider areas, such as access to dental services, equity of access, efficiency of care provision, or the effectiveness of dental services. The ongoing review of the CQC by Penny Dash – and the broader regulatory landscape – will consider wider issues of how to assess, and improve, access to care, innovation in care delivery and use of resources – for all health and care services.

Integrated Care Boards took control of commissioning NHS dental activity in April 2023.

Activity in NHS dentistry is measured by the number of Units of Dental Activity (UDAs) commissioned and delivered and by the number of courses of treatment delivered. The number of appointments delivered are not used as a measurement of dental activity. Data on the number of UDAs commissioned and delivered is published each month on the NHS Business Services Authority Open Data Portal in an online format only.