(1 year, 10 months ago)
Westminster HallWestminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
I appreciate that intervention. In my case, NHS England, and commissioners for the south-west have been fairly good and engaged with the challenge. However, it is a tale of woe, as my right hon. Friend says. Perhaps we can all commit to coming back to this place in a year or two to commend the Minister and celebrate the fact we have a new contract that addresses exactly the challenges that we are all quite rightly highlighting today.
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. He is right to highlight this national challenge. We have substantial challenges with access to NHS dentistry in Suffolk. Part of that, as our right hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) said, relates to the quality of the commissioning and monitoring of contracts by the local commissioner. Will my hon. Friend join me in urging the Minister to put pressure on local commissioners to take this issue seriously? Also, does he agree that we need to ensure that dentists who are commissioned to perform NHS services do actually provide the services that they are commissioned to provide? Some of them are not doing so at the moment.
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. He is right to say that there are commissioned units of dental activity that are not being delivered. There are all sorts of reasons for that, which I hope to cover in my speech. Ultimately, however, we need to look at the contract itself and consider whether it actually works for patients. The contract was introduced by the Labour party in 2006. We know that it does not work today and is in urgent need of reform, which I will come on to in my remarks.