Oral Answers to Questions

Julie Cooper Excerpts

Tuesday 20th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Steve Brine]

I will not pre-empt what the NHS in Yorkshire and the Humber will say to my hon. Friend or to the hon. Lady, because this is a local decision, but I will say that the 13 Starting Well areas—the programme was a manifesto commitment for us—were selected nationally based on overall need and using a wide range of data including access to NHS dental services.

[Julie Cooper (Burnley) (Lab)]

The Minister seems to be in denial. The British Dental Association reports that almost half of all NHS dentists are not accepting new patients—either adults or children. In several regions right across the country, from Yorkshire to Salisbury, patients are having to rely on the third world dental charity, Dentaid, with its now-famous wheelie bin dental surgeries. Does he think that that is an acceptable state of affairs? Will he outline what action he intends to take to improve access to NHS dentists?

[Steve Brine]

It is interesting that the hon. Lady should raise this; it is one of the things that we might be discussing shortly. According to the GP patient survey for January to March last year, whose results were published later last year, 59% of the adults questioned had tried to get an NHS dental appointment in the past two years, and of those, 95% were successful. Those are not bad figures.