Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to her Oral Statement of 7 February 2024 on NHS Dentistry: Recovery and Reform, Official Report, columns 251-253, what her planned timetable is for the deployment of dental vans in (a) Norfolk and (b) North West Norfolk constituency.

Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

We will deploy dental vans offering appointments to patients in targeted rural and coastal communities who have the most limited access to dentistry, including Norfolk. We are currently working with NHS England and the integrated care boards to agree where the vans will be deployed. Dental vans will begin to be implemented later this year.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to her Oral Statement of 7 February 2024 on NHS Dentistry: Recovery and Reform, Official Report, columns 251-253, what her planned timetable is for the deployment of mobile dental teams in schools; and what criteria she plans to use to determine their locations.

Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

Our plan to recover and reform the National Health Service will ensure that children can access preventative care. We will be deploying dental teams to bring preventative dental services such as fluoride varnish directly to children. Dental teams will visit state primary schools in the most need, with higher levels of child tooth decay, and provide fluoride varnish treatments and advice. Starting later this year, we will deploy mobile dental teams into schools in under-served areas, to provide advice and deliver preventative fluoride varnish treatments to more than 165,000 children, strengthening their teeth and preventing tooth decay.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to her Oral Statement of 7 February 2024 on NHS Dentistry: Recovery and Reform, Official Report, columns 251-253, which areas will be included in the first cohort to offer golden hello payments to dentists.

Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

To support practices in areas where recruitment is particularly challenging, we will launch a new Golden Hello scheme. We will implement schemes working with integrated care boards that are struggling to recover their activity levels, and would significantly benefit. A Golden Hello of £20,000 will be offered per dentist for up to 240 dentists. Payments will be phased over three years, requiring a commitment from the dentist to stay in that area delivering National Health Service work for at least three years. We will decide on locations in the coming months.

Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, with reference to the Written Ministerial Statement of 24 January 2024 on Local Government Finance Update, HCWS206, when he plans to announce the allocation of funding for local authorities with the highest internal drainage board levies.

Answered by Simon Hoare - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)

On 24 January the Government announced that having listened to authorities who continue to face sustained increases in their internal drainage board (IDB) special levies, we would again provide £3 million outside of the 24/25 Local Government Finance Settlement to support those experiencing the biggest pressures. We will confirm the distribution of this funding shortly, when data on projected special levies becomes available.

Separately, at the National Farmers Union Conference in February the Prime Minister and Defra Ministers announced a new one-off grant, up to £75 million, for IDBs in 2024/25. This fund will help IDBs recover from the recent flooding and contribute towards modernising IDB infrastructure, to lower costs and increase resilience to climate change.

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